Toronto: Children’s hospitals caring for adults. All but emergency medical services cancelled. Patients transferred from overrun intensive care units to sites hundreds of miles away, sometimes without their consent.
Severely strained hospitals in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, are undertaking unprecedented measures to cope as a variant-drive resurgence of the coronavirus tears through much of the country.
There were a record 851 adult patients with coronavirus-related critical illnesses in Ontario ICUs on Sunday, up 156% from a month ago, according to the provincial Health Ministry. Nearly 600 were on ventilators.
But critical-care physicians say those numbers don’t fully capture the number of severely ill COVID-19 patients. ICUs are so taxed that many patients who would normally be treated in one, including those on high-flow oxygen, are being cared for in hospital wards.
Canada coronavirus: Ontario hospitals under strain, and Doug Ford under siege washingtonpost.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from washingtonpost.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Canada closely watching U.S. pause of J&J COVID-19 vaccine over rare blood clots
Ottawa (CTV Network) Health Canada says it’s closely watching the situation south of the border, where federal health and safety officials have paused the use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine over concerns of a small number of rare blood clotting events.
While the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been approved for use in Canada since March 5, the single-shot vaccine has yet to be added into the national vaccine rollout campaign as doses haven’t arrived in this country.
In a series of tweets, Health Canada said Tuesday morning that it is “following this issue closely and is working with the manufacturer, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other international regulators.”
Theresa Tam calls for stricter controls as Canada sees a strong resurgence in COVID-19 cases theglobeandmail.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theglobeandmail.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.