Much of the day my mind was occupied with the situation in my home province. The pandemic is wreaking havoc there, which appears to be due to relaxed public health guidance. ICUs are at the point of moving to stage two of triage -- making the choice of who receives critical care and who doesn't. The government asked for federal assistance from the armed forces, who will be sending critical care medical personnel and will provide air transport for people who need to be flown elsewhere for an ICU bed. This applies to three people daily being accepted by Ontario. Last week, in his pandemic update the chief medical officer broke down when he reported the modelling results if all things remain equal. It was predicted that by the New Year, ICU admissions would more than double. Given that the system is already beyond capacity, this sounds dire. Up to 20,000 surgeries and surgical procedures for non-COVID patients may be cancelled by the end of this year. The province currently has the highest COVID mortality rate and one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country.
All of this is extremely scary, given the large number of family, friends and acquaintances I have living there. That is a lot of people with faces not just numbers that are at risk of contracting this disease. I lived and worked there for the first four decades of my life. I heard today that one household I know has had COVID enter their home. It does bring tears. The song shared came to mind while wandering through the difficulties out west. Stay safe. Enjoy!
Doctor My Eyes -- Jackson Brown
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