Ontario’s official count of COVID ICU patients is missing dozens of cases, hiding the true scale of the crisis in hospitals
As the third wave crests in Ontario, physicians warn the daily tally of COVID-19 patients in ICUs is an undercount of the true number receiving critical care for the virus.
Almost 100 patients who in pre-pandemic times would qualify for the ICU are instead being treated on medical wards, according to data obtained by the Star from more than a dozen GTA hospitals. This represents a substantial portion of critically ill COVID patients not being counted by the province, masking the full extent of the crisis in hospitals.
To cope with the surge in COVID patients, hospitals have had to change the threshold for who is admitted to ICUs, saving those beds only for the very sickest, with most requiring ventilation and other life-support measures.
There’s something to this. Mom was never placed in the ICU at Toronto Western, she was kept in an isolation ward. They did not consider her a candidate for intubation given the havoc created in her lungs from the Hospital acquired Covid she contracted. They had their reasons for denying intubation, still I wonder if she was “triaged” to death.
Economy lost 207,000 jobs in April, unemployment rate up
OTTAWA — Statistics Canada says the economy lost 207,000 jobs in April as a new rise in COVID-19 cases led to renewed public health restrictions that closed businesses.
The unemployment rate rose to 8.1 per cent from 7.5 per cent in March.
Statistics Canada says the number of employed people in April working less than half their usual hours increased by 288,000 or 27.2 per cent.
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