When Even the Medical Experts Despair
"[The brain also processes short- and long-term goals differently], and political leaders can be particularly prone to dominance of immediate over long-term goals when they focus on economic recovery and getting re-elected over the unavoidably longer-term problem of stopping the pandemic.""What happens in everyone's brain is that we get a mixture of judgments about what's true, with what we want to be true. We're not computers. We're all both enhanced, but also limited by the fact that we're working with our emotions as well as our thinking processes.""People grumbled about it [the COVID-induced Christmas lockdown], businesses were suffering, and so [political leaders] were highly motivated to think, 'oh, good, we got out of that second wave, we're going to be OK'.""They were all too ready to ignore the advice given by the various medical authorities, saying, 'not so fast, we could get a rebound, because the variants are coming'.""We're bored, we're frustrated, people have fundamental social needs to interact with other people and these needs are not being met.""So what are people doing? Well, they're going for short-term emotional decisions, based on those needs. 'I've just got to get out of here. I've got to see some people'. Rather than doing the long-term calculation, which tells you if we can stand here for a few more months, then in fact the pandemic will probably be under control, thanks to the vaccinations that are flooding in. And we'll be OK."Paul Thagard, philosopher, professor emeritus, University of Waterloo
"I cannot see a situation where some degree of ICU triage doesn't happen.""Demand will outstrip supply of staffed beds."Dr.Michael Warner, head, critical care, Michael Garron Hospital
Premier Ford reaching out to other countries to acquire more COVID-19 vaccines, government says CTV News |
New
modelling predicts that COVID-19 infections in Ontario could ascend
beyond 15,000 cases daily by the end of June. A true nightmarish
scenario, but one based on how case numbers have been piling up,
increasing daily in the first quarter of 2021. In 2020, the first full
year of the pandemic, everyone longed for 2021 to arrive in the-then
certainty that the nightmare that was lived through from the
introduction of the SARS-CoV-2 virus into Canada would by year's end be
under control, and life, in 2021, would return to 'normal'.
But
wait; while we wince at that projected worst-case scenario of 15,000
new case counts daily, the prediction goes even higher, to 30,000 daily
cases. Currently, with the case numbers being recognized at 4,200 or
4,700 daily, hospitals are groaning under the weight of new admissions
while intensive care units admissions are devastating the capability of
seeing to the needs of very sick people. So much so, that some patients
are being flown by helicopter across the province to other hospitals
not as yet so crowded and willing to share the load.
There
is now a six-week stay-at-home order, while 100,000 people a day are
being vaccinated, in the hope that over the next 30 days, three million
COVID-inoculated people in a province of 14 million will enable the
achievement of a level of control over the coronavirus running rampant,
led by the U.K. variant, with the South African and Brazil variants
rushing along behind. Provincial borders have been closed. All
enterprises deemed to be non-essential have been shuttered until at
least May 20. "Hang in there, please", pleaded Dr.Adalsteinn Brown, co-chair of the provincial science advisory panel.
Hospital
medical staff at ICUs fear the possibility that swamped ICUs may force
decision-making as is occurring in Brazil where doctors are running out
of intubation drugs meant to sedate patients before connection to
ventilators. In British Columbia the situation looks little better;
their third wave has eclipsed the first two in numbers, hospitalizations
and deaths, while Alberta has the highest per capita case count in
Canada and Saskatchewan teeters "on the cusp of having a huge problem".
Confused
messaging, poor leadership, errant communication, and no clear
structure for prioritizing medical advice along with a pronounced
inability to swiftly plan out and launch successful programs to cope
with the disaster, all contribute to the general state of incompetence
and the public's growing suspicion that government heads and medical
experts are all singing out of different playbooks.
"When do we start saying that 2022 will be a whole lot better than 2021?""Honestly, it's heart breaking that we're over a year into this, that we've allowed this to happen.""Once we have everyone immunized and our numbers are low, then we can start talking about opening up, like Israel, like the U.K.""Until we're there, we've got to go hard."Dr.Andrew Morris. professor of infectious diseases, University of Toronto
Construction workers set up a makeshift hospital at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press) |
Labels: COVID Case Counts, Hospitalizations, ICU Admissions, Ontario, Pandemic
Labels: COVID Case Counts, Hospitalizations, ICU Admissions, Ontario, Overwhelmed, Pandemic
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