Braid: Shocking COVID-19 case count reveals a system under severe stress
Don Braid, Calgary Herald
© Provided by Calgary Herald Alberta chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw.
Albertans generally have confidence in our system for dealing with COVID-19.
But on Thursday, for the very first time, you could almost see the whole mammoth structure start to bend under the strain.
Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, revealed the latest daily case count, and it’s a shocker.
Eight hundred new infections emerged on Wednesday alone.
There had been 515 the day before, and an average of 567 for the four days over the weekend.
That seemed to be a plateau — a high plateau, but at least a level one.
Then came 800. And it happened Thursday amid a technical breakdown that prevented Hinshaw from releasing any other numbers, including deaths.
Her video news conference started an hour and 15 minutes late, which added to the tension and uncertainty.
Hinshaw said the delay was due to the tech issues. Some might see calculation in this. Are they hiding something?
I have much more faith in Hinshaw’s integrity than that. But there’s no doubt about the deep concern that spread on Thursday from Alberta Health to AHS and the premier’s office.
Hinshaw said more stringent measures might be coming. It’s clear that the ones imposed last week — limiting gatherings to 15 people in Calgary and Edmonton — are not having much effect.
She also worries about the impact from Halloween, because any surge in cases from Saturday’s parties and trick or treating has not shown up yet.
This could add to escalation now occurring and raise the case count even more quickly.
Mayor Naheed Nenshi might prove to be right in his recent estimate that we could top 1,000 cases a day .
The dawning worry is that the system might be edging toward loss of control. The virus is now spreading, at least in part, beyond the knowledge of those charged with detecting infection.
Hinshaw conceded that AHS no longer has the capacity to call every contact of every case in a timely way.
“Effective today, as an interim measure until more contact tracers can be hired and trained, AHS will be focusing their contact tracing on high priority settings only.”
Those include continuing-care centres, a health-care setting or a school.
If you catch the disease and you’re not classified as high priority, you’ll be asked to do your own notification of contacts.
That’s reasonable in the circumstances. It’s also one sign of a system running short of resources.
Why are infections rising so sharply? Hinshaw gave an explanation.
The culprits are people who keep working and circulating while they’re experiencing symptoms.
In Calgary, 11 per cent of active cases worked while symptomatic. Nine per cent travelled and seven per cent attended a social gathering.
In Edmonton, nine per cent worked while experiencing symptoms. Eight per cent went to a store or service business and a further eight per cent attended a social gathering.
Hinshaw calculates that as many as 500 people circulated freely while symptomatic. This highly infectious disease could explode from those people to thousands upon thousands of others, who will, in turn, spread it to still more people.
That’s what has happened in the U.S. It’s what we have quite successfully prevented — until now.
Hinshaw almost begs people to stop all activities if they have symptoms. And do not, whether you’re symptomatic or not, go to house parties.
I’ve mentioned the Ontario comparison before. But it is important to give a sense of how much trouble we’re in.
Ontario’s daily cases now run about 1,000 — just 200 more than our new high. Quebec had just over 1,000 on Wednesday.
Both provinces have millions more people than Alberta.
If the latest level of 800 cases rises to match the Ontario and Quebec numbers, it will be demonstrably true that Alberta’s COVID-19 crisis is the worst in Canada.
Premier Jason Kenney recently said to the thoughtless people who ignore all this: “Knock it off.”
They aren’t listening. Very soon, if this goes on, he’ll have to act.
Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Calgary Herald.
dbraid@postmedia.com
Twitter: @DonBraid
Facebook: Don Braid Politics
Albertans generally have confidence in our system for dealing with COVID-19.
But on Thursday, for the very first time, you could almost see the whole mammoth structure start to bend under the strain.
Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, revealed the latest daily case count, and it’s a shocker.
Eight hundred new infections emerged on Wednesday alone.
There had been 515 the day before, and an average of 567 for the four days over the weekend.
That seemed to be a plateau — a high plateau, but at least a level one.
Then came 800. And it happened Thursday amid a technical breakdown that prevented Hinshaw from releasing any other numbers, including deaths.
Her video news conference started an hour and 15 minutes late, which added to the tension and uncertainty.
Hinshaw said the delay was due to the tech issues. Some might see calculation in this. Are they hiding something?
I have much more faith in Hinshaw’s integrity than that. But there’s no doubt about the deep concern that spread on Thursday from Alberta Health to AHS and the premier’s office.
Hinshaw said more stringent measures might be coming. It’s clear that the ones imposed last week — limiting gatherings to 15 people in Calgary and Edmonton — are not having much effect.
She also worries about the impact from Halloween, because any surge in cases from Saturday’s parties and trick or treating has not shown up yet.
This could add to escalation now occurring and raise the case count even more quickly.
Mayor Naheed Nenshi might prove to be right in his recent estimate that we could top 1,000 cases a day .
The dawning worry is that the system might be edging toward loss of control. The virus is now spreading, at least in part, beyond the knowledge of those charged with detecting infection.
Hinshaw conceded that AHS no longer has the capacity to call every contact of every case in a timely way.
“Effective today, as an interim measure until more contact tracers can be hired and trained, AHS will be focusing their contact tracing on high priority settings only.”
Those include continuing-care centres, a health-care setting or a school.
If you catch the disease and you’re not classified as high priority, you’ll be asked to do your own notification of contacts.
That’s reasonable in the circumstances. It’s also one sign of a system running short of resources.
Why are infections rising so sharply? Hinshaw gave an explanation.
The culprits are people who keep working and circulating while they’re experiencing symptoms.
In Calgary, 11 per cent of active cases worked while symptomatic. Nine per cent travelled and seven per cent attended a social gathering.
In Edmonton, nine per cent worked while experiencing symptoms. Eight per cent went to a store or service business and a further eight per cent attended a social gathering.
Hinshaw calculates that as many as 500 people circulated freely while symptomatic. This highly infectious disease could explode from those people to thousands upon thousands of others, who will, in turn, spread it to still more people.
That’s what has happened in the U.S. It’s what we have quite successfully prevented — until now.
Hinshaw almost begs people to stop all activities if they have symptoms. And do not, whether you’re symptomatic or not, go to house parties.
I’ve mentioned the Ontario comparison before. But it is important to give a sense of how much trouble we’re in.
Ontario’s daily cases now run about 1,000 — just 200 more than our new high. Quebec had just over 1,000 on Wednesday.
Both provinces have millions more people than Alberta.
If the latest level of 800 cases rises to match the Ontario and Quebec numbers, it will be demonstrably true that Alberta’s COVID-19 crisis is the worst in Canada.
Premier Jason Kenney recently said to the thoughtless people who ignore all this: “Knock it off.”
They aren’t listening. Very soon, if this goes on, he’ll have to act.
Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Calgary Herald.
dbraid@postmedia.com
Twitter: @DonBraid
Facebook: Don Braid Politics
No comments:
Post a Comment