“Canada is still facing an incredibly dire situation with this third wave, cases are increasing rapidly in many cases, numbers are higher in many places than ever before and many hospitals are far too thin,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said. said at a news conference Friday in Ottawa.
He said the situation was particularly dire in Ontario, where Toronto now sees records shattered and hospital beds filled.
Ontario broke more pandemic records for daily cases, hospitalizations and intensive care admissions on Friday.
“There is every reason to believe that we are now in the finals, although the toughest part of this pandemic, now is not the time to give up, not even for a second,” said Trudeau, adding. “Now is the time for us to dig deep into what is hopefully the very late stages of this pandemic for all of us.”
In the past week alone, there was a 35% increase in hospital admissions and a more than 20% increase in ICU admissions, public health officials said. Even more troubling is the 38% increase in deaths over the past week, they said.
The situation is particularly dire in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province.
“Note that our hospitals can no longer function normally, they are bursting at the seams,” said Dr. Adalsteinn Brown, the co-chair of scientific advice in Ontario. “We set up field hospitals and we separate critically ill patients from their families by helicopting them across the province for care. Our children’s hospitals now allow adults as patients. This has never happened in Ontario before, it has never happened in Canada before. , ”
Based on new pandemic projections, demand for acute care is expected to increase in the coming weeks, regardless of how many restrictions remain in place, Brown said.
Strict lockdown measures expanded in Ontario
In late Friday, Ontario extended its state of emergency and stay-at-home order until at least May 15.
The province said it would also restrict inter-provincial travel and set up checkpoints to enforce that mandate, while ordering nonessential construction to be shut down from Saturday.
All outdoor recreation activities, such as golf courses, playgrounds, basketball courts and soccer fields, will be closed. And even getting together outside with people who do not live in the same household is prohibited. Inter-household gatherings have been banned since earlier this month.
All of Canada’s largest provinces are struggling to control the effect of variants, especially in low-income pockets of Canada’s largest cities.
“The relative risk of these variants to the older version of COVID is much higher, higher for admission, higher for ICU, and higher for mortality. And it affects younger populations with much less inoculum or virus load that causes infection very quickly,” said Dr. David Williams, Chief Medical Officer of Health in Ontario during an update Friday in Toronto.
Trudeau echoed the fatigue of millions of Canadians who have now been through months of lockdowns and restrictions, revealing that he had an argument with his 13-year-old son on Friday morning, telling him that public health measures were still needed.
“Xavier is 13 years old and he misses his friends, he doesn’t want to go to school online, he wants to go out and play basketball with his friends, he wants to live the normal life that we all honestly want. Right now,” he said “But the reality is, we know the best way to get through this is for each of us to follow local public health rules.”