Covid19 Update March 27, 2020
The whole world has changed in the last week. I hope to provide some balance to the numbers for you.
In Ontario we have about 837 confirmed corona-SAR2 virus illness. 13 people passed away. In Canada we have 2,892 confirmed cases with 28 deaths. Compare that to Influenz A&B which we have 52,526 cases with 97 deaths countrywide. All these respiratory illnesses look similar and Influenza B is favouring the young. Those that passed away as a rule, had multiple medical conditions that they had been chronically struggling with and often required chronic care setting. The virus contributed to the death, but was not the sole cause. Unfortunately, there will be the odd young healthy person that may succumb. This will make the news headlines, so please keep things in context. Most cases of respiratory illness are recovering at home. In Ontario, we have conducted 38,550 swabs to date. These were sick people who were medically assessed prior to swabbing. Only 837 tested positive. No mention of what the other 37,713 patients had. It underscores that respiratory viruses are largely invisible and symptoms look alike. Most of the rest probably had influenza or a rhinovirus. There is little use in asking to be swabed, except if you become critical. The real numbers of how many cases are circulating is nothing but a guess. You have to multiply the confirmed cases by a factor of 10-100 to ball park it. It is analogous to counting how many fish there are in a lake, but fishing for 8 hours, and then using the number of fish you caught to estimate the real number.
Many people misunderstand what the current emergency lockdown is meant to do. There is a lot of unpredictable science at work, besides reminding us that grandma was correct about the washing, breathing and touching stuff. Containment involves locking down a geographical area immediately to stop spread at the onset (i.e.dec19) When China got overwhelmed and locked down millions of citizens, other countries were too nice to do the same. I guess the lessons of SARS were forgotten. Train, plane and ship travel continued for months, until one world leader decided to follow suite and suddenly every other leader seems to think the same. What academics realize is the current strategy of minimizing movement is NOT aimed to erradicate the virus. At best, it will slow the spread so that our medical system will not be overwhelmed. Anyone who visits an Ontario hospital over Christmas witnesses how influenza paralyzes us annually. It implies that the numbers will continue to keep climbing unless we find leaders who can crunch the numbers to real and definable things and provide comparisons to other diseaeses. Good news is that greater than 99 percent of people do fine with respiratory viruses as a group. We dont have a vaccine yet, and there are medications that show some promise to help those critical cases that require some assistance with breathing to recover. Your best defence is your immune system. Keep it healthy, eat fresh vegtables and fruit, avoid sugar particularly of the fructose variety.
Our medical center is now directly across from a Covid19 testing site. A lot of security, tape, tents, masks etc. Please be assured that all proper precautions are being taken. The emergency order, has resulted in more strigent refinements to provide health care. Only essential care is being provided face to face. Restrictions on telephone care have been temporarily relaxed to allow health care workers to provide care by phone. We will screen all calls, and many patients will receive phone advice by one of our health team. If you need to come in, you will be given a specific time. Social distancing will be in effect, waiting rooms will be very limited. Staff will remain behind glass shields. There is no need to produce OHIP cards unless changes . Our lab and xray are only dealing with essential cases. We have pretty well run out of most protective equiptment and cannot provide masks or gowns. We follow stringent disinfection between patients, and ask that you not dwell around the building and proceed directly home. We are unable to see anyone with acute respiratory illness, and possible covid19 cases are being referred to public health. We have NO SWABS. This is not the time to deal with lists of minor issues.