Adam Prudhomme
Editor
Dr. Kieran Moore didn’t mince words when talking about the outlook for the province amid rising COVID-19 cases, in particular those identified as variants of concern.
KFLA Public Health’s medical officer of health spoke with reporters via Skype on Friday afternoon to highlight the severity of the situation.
“This is a very dangerous month,” said Moore. “All of April is going to be dangerous across Ontario. The intensive care units across Ontario are getting stretched, the staff are getting stretched, mostly in the GTA and in Ottawa and obviously the health system has to work to keep as many people alive as possible. I have the strongest of admiration for my intensive care colleagues, nurses, respiratory techs, physicians, cleaners who are going to be caring for more and more COVID patients over the coming months and thank them for helping all Ontarians in general stay alive in this very difficult time. I do see that over the next several weeks, our fate is in our hands, that if we adhere to best practices I think that we can continue to limit our impact on the health system and allow our experts, nurses, respiratory techs, physicians to save lives for other Ontarians.”
Friday saw Ontario record 4,227 new cases on COVID-19, the second highest single day total recorded since the start of the pandemic. In KFLA there were 16 new cases, raising the active case count in the region to 103. The region also reported 11 previous cases had been identified as variants of concern. Moore noted three locals are now in the hospital due to COVID-19 and Kingston Health Sciences Centres is also accepting patients from outside the region due to other hospitals across the province being at full capacity.
“With variants of concern they spread roughly 1.5 times faster and that the risk to admission to hospital and the risk of death is much higher than the base COVID virus that has been circulating for the last year,” said Moore. “In effect this is a new epidemic that we’re dealing with here. It’s a new enemy that spreads quicker, has a higher lethality and a higher risk of getting hospitalized. Our health system in Ontario in general is getting stretched.”
Moore says across Ontario there are 552 people in intensive care settings due to COVID-19.
Those numbers come as reports of large crowds of people gathering at Kingston’s Breakwater Park on Thursday. The city responded by closing the park amid the COVID-19 outbreak that has been declared in the University District.
Moore spoke of a Kingston Health Science Centre employee awaiting the arrival of an air ambulance and seeing the crowded park.
“She was anticipating the arrival of a COVID patient intubated and ventilated,” said Moore. “A younger person arriving from Toronto. She had to look across at Breakwater Park and her jaw just dropped. In the middle of a pandemic we’re having 10-15 people admitted from elsewhere to Kingston Health Sciences Centre, to look across and not see people adhering to best practices to try to limit the spread of this virus made her call me directly, clearly upset. I’ve had calls from many people who are clearly upset that we have to take this pandemic more seriously. The game has changed. This virus is more aggressive, it spreads more quickly, it’s more virulent and we are tired, we want to get back to a normal life. But April, we can not do it at present.”
Moore said the community would have to ‘engineer success’.
“The total number of cases will continue to rise if we don’t have further action on socially distancing, wearing masks and decreasing the social circles that they’re in,” said Moore.
In praising the community’s vaccine roll out, Moore said roughly 30 per cent of the adult population in KFLA has been offered at lease one dose of immunization. In the meantime, he stresses the importance of limiting contact with people outside the home and keeping trips to essential ones only.
“We have a tough month ahead. We’ll get through it. And I’m confident though within KFLA that we can limit the effect on our hospital,” said Moore. “We just for April in particular have to hold the line. To stay steady, to limit our number of social contacts. It will get better. We’ll get through this. We’ll be able to limit the spread of these variants. I’m very confident in KFLA that we can control this.”