Hospitals facing 'fragile situation' as COVID-19 cases climb

Ottawa's hospitals are facing a potential tipping point as the number of COVID-19 hospitalizationscontinueto climb, contributing to what one doctor characterized as"a fragile situation."

As of Wednesdaythere were 40 Ottawans in hospital forCOVID-19 treatment,11 of them in anICU. Two weeks ago those numbers were 27 and six andthat's alongside everyone else needing hospital care.

Intensive care admissionshit an all-time high across Ontariothis week and while Ottawa isn't yet at the samelevelas other areas,health officials say its local number is likely to rise because of more contagious andserious infection-causing coronavirus variants.

"We're still learning about what is different about the variants of concern," said Dr. Lindy Samson,chief of staff and chief medical officer for children's hospital CHEO, on Wednesday.

"We are concerned that younger people are going to become sicker if this progresses."

Ottawa's hospitals are at about 100 per cent capacity, she said.

"And that's as we're seeing a huge surge in activity of COVID infections across the city. That has us very worried. We are also very worried given that the variants of concern are now such a high proportion of the new infections."

The load on hospitals is one of the reasons Ontariois expected to enter another provincewide shutdown. These interviews were done before Thursday's warnings from doctors and provincial advisors.

Hospitalizations continue to climb

There are plansin case Ottawa's hospitals become even more strained.

The city's hospitals are working together to not only take on extra patients, but to transfer patients between hospitals or even share staff, said Dr. Stphane Roux, chief of staff with the Montfort Hospital.

"That's a fragile situation at this time," he said.

The worry is that hospitalizations will rise withthe number of cases involving variants of concern.

The numbers are high. They are continuing to climb and may well exceed what we saw two, three months ago.- Dr. Greg Rose,Queensway-Carleton Hospital

That's not yet the case, according to Dr.Greg Rose, an infectious disease physician and the medical director of infection control at the Queensway-Carleton Hospital.

He said 50 per cent of Ottawa's current cases arevariants of concern.A smaller share are in hospital.

"There's often a delay between when we start seeing cases of something in the community and when we start seeing people sick enough to need to be hospitalized," he said.

The number of hospitalizations also hasn't hit the city's pandemic peak frommid-April 2020 of 62 residents with COVID-19 in hospital or 20 in an ICU, though it is similar to the early autumn and winter surges.

Younger people being hospitalized

Rose said many of the patients he has seen in hospital are relatively young and healthy with no underlying medical conditions andnot all havevariants of concern.

He said moreyoung people are being infected,likely due to a breakdown of people not wearing masks, physically distancingor avoiding gatherings.

"The things we've been recommending all along remain as valid now as they have at any point."

Ottawa's Medical Officer of Health Dr. Vera Etches said last month25 per cent of hospitalizationssince December werepeople in their 50s who are still months away from receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.

Ottawa Public Healthbreaks downthe 824 people with COVID-19 who have been in hospitalby age, and about 30 per cent of its total have been younger than 60:

• 123 people in their 50s,
• 54 people in their 40s,
• 46 in their 30s,
• 17 in their 20s,
• seven between the ages of 10 and 19,
• and five children under the age of 10.

Three of the people in their 30s have been in hospital this week.

The youngest person in the city to die of the illness was in his30s, while two people including one earlier this week were in their 40s.