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One thing about healthcare is that you have to keep in mind where in Canada you are. Urban and rural differences etc. Also provincial differences and yes I do think Covid has something to do the current situation.
Personally, I've never know anyone who waited days in ER, not saying it can't happen, but I never experienced it, and I was in ER a few times over the years with family and friends.
However, I also live in a city with several hospitals and urgent care centres.
ER wait times are an issue in the US as well, and depending again where and what the issue is.
It's not a rural vs. urban thing. We drove 133 miles to a hospital in Kingston, ON, which is a sizeable city of over 125K people. (We have a hospital 12 miles away in the same system - 6 beds!) We were specifically told to go to that hospital because it is affiliated with Queen's University and known for its neurology department. Four different Residents, all of whom appeared to be about 15 years old, lol, came to hit him with little hammers, stick him with pins, and shine lights in his eyes. He was a science project to them, but we assumed that it would be that way going in knowing that it is a teaching hospital.
23 days is insane, no pun intended. I have never heard such a thing. As a matter of fact, my mother died last year on March 28, when NJ was in the throes of COVID. Four months later, my sister, who has the same genetic kidney disease as our mother (she died of heart failure, actually) went to the kidney doctor they both used, and he did not know our mother had died. The reason he didn't know is that his father died of COVID the same day our mother died at home in her sleep in her own bed. He brought his father into the hospital with which he is affiliated and he sat there with him for 24 hours before he could get him admitted into the hospital where he is himself a doctor. We were a little shocked at that.
I expected that it might take a day or so to get into the hospital in Kingston through the ER. I did not expect it to be days on end. I had never personally known of anyone who experienced that.
At any rate, if my partner had stayed, I am not sure he would have survived lying on that stretcher bed in the ER until he got into a bed. Because of a deviated septum, he does not sleep on his back, but the bed was too narrow to turn on his side, and he has mobility issues right now. The place is brightly lit and noisy as the pits of hell. He requested a sedative to help him sleep from two nurses and a doctor, all of whom said they would get him one and never returned. Going without sleep for days on end in his condition could be extremely dangerous, IMO. We still do not have a diagnosis, but at least he is comfortable and is not alone.
^Also wanted to add that while I don't think Kingston has a lot of COVID cases, there may be rules impacting the hospital space; for example, there might be rooms that once held four people that now only hold two because of distancing. I don't know for sure, but it makes sense.
On the plus side, the outpatient services such as Occupational Therapy and Speech Pathology have been speedy and well-coordinated. I am impressed that they all know what the others are doing and that there's a central person assigned to manage it all.
But yeah. Americans don't really know how big our "big cities" are. Spokane and Colorado Springs and Orillia are small potatoes, compared to large Canadian cities.
I can't say I know much of anything about Canada, but I know its population is heavily urban.
75% of your population is vaccinated (with 1 dose) and 66% with 2 and yet this cannot be controlled? Does anybody even know how to get out of this pandemic? Does not look like.
75% of your population is vaccinated (with 1 dose) and 66% with 2 and yet this cannot be controlled? Does anybody even know how to get out of this pandemic? Does not look like.
The Delta variant was the curve ball. It results in a higher rate of breakthrough infections and resultant hospitalizations. So far the vaccines seem to be very effective against death though.
Meanwhile:
Quote:
Pfizer partner BioNTech aims to begin tests this month to determine if an altered form of its COVID-19 vaccine can better protect against the far more contagious Delta variant.
The clinical trial, whose results are anticipated in the fourth quarter, will also examine whether a combination of jabs that includes an inoculation against Delta and the original “wild type” first discovered in Wuhan proves effective.
Should the data confirm the desired antibody response, BioNTech expects it can adapt production within 100 days. Since the same raw materials and factory equipment are employed, all it needs to do is swap out the DNA template to account for a different genetic sequence in the spike protein.
The Delta variant was the curve ball. It results in a higher rate of breakthrough infections and resultant hospitalizations. So far the vaccines seem to be very effective against death though.
i read online that in Isreal they had original determined that Pfizer was 95% effective against covid. They are saying that Pfizer is now down to about 39% effective with the delta variant in isreal. Not good, specially considering there are still so many people unvaccinated.
I wonder how effective mixed vaccines, aztraseneca with Moderna are holding up against the delta variant? Has anyone read anything about that?
i read online that in Isreal they had original determined that Pfizer was 95% effective against covid. They are saying that Pfizer is now down to about 39% effective with the delta variant in isreal. Not good, specially considering there are still so many people unvaccinated.
I wonder how effective mixed vaccines, aztraseneca with Moderna are holding up against the delta variant? Has anyone read anything about that?
Somewhere I read that Israel vaccinated much of their population with Pfizer vaqcciines early on (as early as January) and the earlier someone was vaccinated, the more likely he/she would suffer a breakthrough infection. This kind of makes sense as I long thought that the Covid vaccine would be a lot like the flu vaccine with diminishing efficacy over a short period of time as opposed to say the MMR or tetanus vaccines. The other thing to keep in mind is that we don't know what exactly the infected Israelis were doing all this time. Were they socially distancing and following Covid protocols or did they simply let loose, gather in large groups indoors, and chat and chat until their spit got into each others nostrils at close range? Were the vaccinated hanging out with unvaccinated? Our own epidemiologists here say that human behavior is really what is driving the pandemic forward. Too many people, especially young people under age 40, are carelessly doing things like as if it were yesterday and this will eventually affect people of all ages.
75% of your population is vaccinated (with 1 dose) and 66% with 2 and yet this cannot be controlled? Does anybody even know how to get out of this pandemic? Does not look like.
Even the New Zealand PM just said that trying to control Delta is like a whole different virus. They are one of the very few countries that had kept it out and now they are struggling.
Even the New Zealand PM just said that trying to control Delta is like a whole different virus. They are one of the very few countries that had kept it out and now they are struggling.
It's only a matter of time before we are hit with a new and stronger variant.
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