COVID-19 hospitalizations are on the rise across Canada as a wave of autumn infections sweeps the population, according to recent data released by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).
The latest numbers are nothing to panic over, infectious diseases experts say, but they can’t be ignored either, especially with so many hospitals in the country already operating at or near capacity.
“I don’t think there’s anything unexpected in the sense that … we’re going to see a rise in COVID-19 in the community as the summer turned to fall, just as we’ve seen every year since COVID emerged,” Dr. Isaac Bogoch, clinician investigator at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute, told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview on Monday.
“So then we’re obviously seeing a rise in cases, and that’s reflected in a rise in hospitalizations.”
Canada recorded a total of 10,218 new COVID-19 cases from Oct. 1 to 7.
As of Oct. 10, COVID-19 patients occupied 3,797 hospital beds across the country — the highest occupancy rate since last winter.
Because testing practices, data sources and reporting to PHAC are not consistent from one province or public health unit to the next, the agency warned the data could be incomplete.
This is one of the reasons why Bogoch says hospitalization numbers need to be taken with a grain of salt and contextualized alongside other data.
“There’s no one metric that tells the whole story. You’ve got to use all of the metrics available to you, contextualize them appropriately to paint an accurate picture of what’s happening,” Bogoch said.
“If you look at the ratio of patients admitted to the ICU versus patients admitted to the wards, that’s a helpful metric of looking at the severity of various of COVID waves.”
PHAC’s latest data, for example, reveals that patients in non-ICU beds comprise most of the latest increase in nation-wide hospitalizations, while both the number of COVID-19 patients in ICU and those receiving mechanical ventilation rose modestly, meaning fewer people are severely ill from the virus.
Graphs generated by Health Canada show the daily number of hospital beds and ICU beds occupied by COVID-19 patients in Canada as of October 10, 2023. (Health Canada)Bogoch treats COVID-19 patients in addition to publishing research on infectious diseases. He said hospitalization data can also be inflated by cases where a positive COVID-19 test is incidental to the primary reason a patient was hospitalized.
For example, an elderly patient admitted for injuries sustained in a fall that took place a month after a COVID-19 infection might be included in that hospital’s tally of COVID-19 admissions, even if they were not actively suffering from symptoms of an infection at the time of admission.
“When you look at COVID related hospitalizations, there are some that are included in there that probably shouldn’t be,” Bogoch said.
“COVID does bring a lot of people into hospital for reasons beyond respiratory. But in addition to that, we just know there’s a lot of incidental admission to the hospital. And as someone who admits people to hospital regularly, it’s not always clear cut.”
‘COMPLETELY FLAT-FOOTED’
None of this means Canadians should be complacent about COVID-19 this fall, say both Bogoch and Dr. Michael Curry, clinical professor of emergency medicine at the University of British Columbia.
Each wave of COVID-19 infections and subsequent hospitalizations — no matter how small, relative to previous waves — tests the limits of understaffed hospital and primary care systems across the country.
“COVID is not even remotely close now, even with that rise in hospitalizations, to what we saw in 2020 and 2021,” Bogoch said. “But it’s also not nothing. It’s still an additional pressure on an already stretched health-care system. And that’s why it’s challenging and it’s going to continue to be challenging for the years ahead.”
Curry works at Delta Hospital in Delta, B.C., and believes part of the problem is that hospitals often operate with just enough capacity to meet demand in normal conditions, with little or none to spare. In his time at Delta, he said the hospital has never reported a capacity level below 90 per cent. For the past 18 months, he said, that number has hovered around 115 per cent.
“Particularly in Canada, compared to a lot of other countries in the world, we run our hospitals on a just-enough model,” Curry told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview on Monday. “We have no excess capacity. So we have barely enough to get by in usual times, which leaves us completely flat-footed during extraordinary times.”
When hospitals find themselves understaffed in times of increased demand, one of the ways they respond is by temporarily closing emergency rooms. This year alone, CTV News has found more than 1,284 instances where a hospital emergency unit, usually in a rural community, has been shut down for hours or days.
“There’s been a number of small- and medium-sized hospitals closing their emergency departments due to staffing shortages,” Curry said. “This is a countrywide phenomenon.”
Knowing hospitals across the country struggle to meet demand every time COVID-19 cases rise and that — however small the number — people are still dying due to the coronavirus, Curry and Bogoch said individuals should continue to do anything they can to help limit the spread of COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses.
That includes keeping up to date with COVID-19 and flu vaccines, staying home when sick, wearing a mask in crowded settings and maintaining proper hand hygiene.
– With files from CTV National News Medical Correspondent Avis Favaro
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
Graphs generated by Health Canada show the daily number of hospital beds and ICU beds occupied by COVID-19 patients in Canada as of October 10, 2023. (Health Canada)Bogoch treats COVID-19 patients in addition to publishing research on infectious diseases. He said hospitalization data can also be inflated by cases where a positive COVID-19 test is incidental to the primary reason a patient was hospitalized.
