Revelers make fun of the coronavirus pandemic during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Louisiana on February 25, 2020.
The Governor of Louisiana, John Bel Edwards, warned on Wednesday that the state could run out of life-saving ventilators by next week after the number of covid-19 cases spiked dramatically in the past few days. Louisiana has currently identified at least 1,785 cases and 65 deaths from the new coronavirus, making it one of the worst-hit states in the country.
“In the New Orleans region, we’re on a course that, by April the 2nd or 3rd, we’re going to have great difficulty in getting everybody a respirator who will need one,” Governor Edwards told PBS NewsHour. “And then, every day after that, it becomes increasingly more difficult, unless, of course, we start to bend that curve.”
Advertisement
Edwards went on to say that the state distributed 100 ventilators on Wednesday but that Louisiana needs “at least 1,000.”
States are currently competing against each other to buy ventilators from all over the world, a crisis that would normally be avoided with cooperation at the federal level through an agency like FEMA. But President Donald Trump’s failure of management has created a situation where every state is more or less fighting on its own, desperately trying to procure medical supplies and equipment.
Advertisement
“We would really like some help, because, otherwise, you’re left to just beg, borrow, and steal from wherever you can get these things,” Governor Edwards said. “And, again, you’re in competition with other states. You’re in competition with your own health care providers to some degree. And the federal government will come in and make a purchase, and you find out that your purchase just got canceled.”
State officials believe that Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans on February 25 contributed to the spike in cases, as thousands took to the streets to celebrate. Louisiana Senator John Kennedy even blamed China for not giving the world a heads up about the virus before Mardi Gras, but the deadliness of the outbreak on February 25 was already well established. Disney theme parks in Hong Kong and Shanghai had been closed at the end of January, as just one example.
Advertisement
Nevertheless, people still gathered in large groups in New Orleans, some dressed as Corona beer-nurses with fake syringes, poking fun at the outbreaks in other parts of the world.
The state of Louisiana has conducted fewer than 12,000 covid-19 tests, another concern for public health officials who need an accurate picture of the contagion’s spread to form an effective gameplan to defeat it. At least 9,414 of those tests have been conducted at commercial labs, while 2,037 have been conducted at Louisiana’s state lab, according to the Louisiana Department of Health.
Advertisement
Governor Edwards issued a stay-at-home order on Monday, precisely because Louisiana has experienced one of the most troubling spikes in cases in the entire world. University of Louisiana-Lafayette Professor Gary Wagner has warned the state’s trajectory is worse than any region both inside and outside of the U.S. right now.
“If you look at the trajectory that we are on, and you go back and look at where Italy and Spain were at the same point in time that we are, we’re on a higher trajectory,” Wagner told the Daily Advertiser. “You look at where we are compared to where New York state was when they were at the same point in time, we’re on a higher trajectory than New York state.”
Advertisement
And that trajectory should be troubling to anyone who’s paying attention to the crisis in New York. There aren’t enough ventilators in New York City, the largest outbreak in the country, and people are already dying in the ER while waiting for ICU beds, waiting to get treated.
Elmhurst, a 545-bed public hospital in Queens, has begun transferring patients not suffering from coronavirus to other hospitals as it moves toward becoming dedicated entirely to the outbreak. Doctors and nurses have struggled to make do with a few dozen ventilators. Calls over a loudspeaker of “Team 700,” the code for when a patient is on the verge of death, come several times a shift. Some have died inside the emergency room while waiting for a bed.
A refrigerated truck has been stationed outside to hold the bodies of the dead. Over the past 24 hours, New York City’s public hospital system said in a statement, 13 people at Elmhurst had died.
Advertisement
Health care workers are also getting infected and dying. Kious Kelly, an assistant nursing manager in his 40s at Mount Sinai West in New York, died on Tuesday. New York’s morgues are already at capacity, according to Politico.
Meanwhile, conservative media organizations like Fox News continue to advocate for a loosening of travel restrictions inside the U.S., sometimes explicitly saying that it’s better for Americans to die than for the economy to suffer. Dinesh D’Souza, a felon who was pardoned by Donald Trump, declared on Laura Ingraham’s show last night that the spread of coronavirus is mostly in liberal states.
Advertisement
President Trump has even insisted that people should begin traveling again by Easter, just two weeks away. Public health officials warn that such an idea would be disastrous, of course.
Advertisement
It’s going to get so much worse before it gets better. And while it’s important to treat the sick, and focus on the enormous task at hand, it’s also crucial to remember what leaders like President Trump were doing during this time. There needs to be justice when we reach the other side of this crisis. And Trump’s failures to protect his own people must never be forgotten.
The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
