This is DAY 24 of the COVID-19 pandemic.
An unvarnished view of what we should expect in the coming days and weeks in Ontario's fight against COVID-19.
And Ontario’s fight is Canada’s fight
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Here’s what you need to know on Friday, April 3, 2020
Some dire projections from Ontario this afternoon. As promised, Premier Doug Ford and provincial public health officials shared their COVID-19 modelling projections.
Doctor Peter Donnelly is the CEO of Public Health Ontario. He told the Queen’s Park press gallery …and laid out the stark numbers the Premier’s referred to.
You heard correctly. The best case scenario, if we all do everything we can to curb the spread of COVID-19, Dr. Donelly says there would be 3000-15000 COVID related deaths in the next 18-24 months.
For some important perspective…
The death rate for influenza in Canada is 500 to 1500 cases per year. 500-1500 for all of Canada. Based on the projections presented Friday afternoon, Ontario’s COVID death toll alone would 6 to 10 times greater than the national death toll from the flu.
Dr. Donelly stresses in order to keep those numbers as low as possible, we must all take an aggressive stance…Flattening the curve won’t be good enough. We need to chop the top off the curve.
Even at that, given this best-case scenario…the projections suggest 80 thousand Ontarians will be infected by COVID-19 by the end of April. And the Premier says that’s going to mean hundreds of fatalities in mere weeks.
Again, for some perspective, the modelling suggests Ontario’s death toll would be more than 1600 by the end of the month. As of Friday afternoon on April the 3rd, Ontario is reporting 67 deaths
It means the wave will continue to mount, it’s far from cresting and will crash into our already stressed healthcare services. The projections suggesting that Ontario’s Intensive Care Unit beds will be at capacity within weeks and will still be stressed if the province is able to add 900 more beds before the end of April.
Much has been made of the shortage of medical supplies and that became more complicated when US President Donald Trump invoked the Defense Production Act requiring companies to prioritize the production of masks and ventilators to fight the spread of COVID-19.
Sugical mask manufacturer 3M says the White House has requested it cease exports of U.S.-made N95 face masks to Canada.
3M is pushing back on the order and so is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Trudeau wouldn’t comment on whether the federal government is considering imposing retaliatory measures.
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For all the attention on data and modelling and projecting what may be coming…
But there was data hiding in plain view four months ago that predicted the novel corona virus that has resulted in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Katherine Ellison is an author and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist based in San Fransisco who says researchers combed through social media data in December saw the rise of the new corona virus in China.
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DISCLAIMER:
THE VIEWPOINTS EXPRESSED IN THIS PODCAST REPRESENT THE OPINIONS OF THE HOST AND PARTICIPANTS AS OF THE DATE OF PUBLICATION AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO BE A SUBSTITUTE FOR MEDICAL ADVICE AND BEST PRACTICES BY LEADING MEDICAL AUTHORITIES AS THE INFORMATION SURROUNDING THE CURRENT CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC IS CONSTANTLY EVOLVING.
