This section was created by the editorial department. The customer was not given the opportunity to place restrictions on the content or to check it before publication. by HAVEN HOME HEATING & AIR CONDITIONING

Date of publication: 07 Apr 2022 • 14 hours ago • 3 minutes reading

Content of the article

Despite only 4,224 confirmed COVID-19 cases reported Thursday, a recent wastewater monitoring by the Ontario COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Board shows that the county currently sees about 100,000 to 120,000 new cases a day, with Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox and The Addington Public Health catchment has the highest incidence rates in the county. According to the COVID-19 Scoreboard, KFL & A currently leads the province in COVID-19 cases per million inhabitants per day, with more than 520 cases per million inhabitants reported per day.

Advertising 2

This ad has not been uploaded yet, but your article continues below.

Content of the article

As cases in the county reach high levels, Ontario Health Minister Christine Eliot said on Thursday that the increase was not a cause for concern, as it was projected to increase as soon as public health measures eased. “We have to learn to live with COVID as it is now,” Eliot told parliament on Thursday. For Dr. Dick Zautman, an infectious disease specialist at Queen’s University, the county has shown little evidence that anything has been learned. “We talk about wanting to learn to live with COVID, but you can only do it if you’ve learned something and use what you’ve learned,” Zoutman told the Whig-Standard. “We have to do a lot more than we do. We let it pass and, really, it does not need to. It cannot be completely prevented, but it can be largely prevented. “ For Zoutman, the argument currently used by public health to justify widespread infection – that milder disease leads to fewer deaths – does not take into account the long-term consequences of the virus. “Is there a question of what COVID is doing in the long run? We know that the virus goes behind the lining of all our blood vessels, we know that it shrinks your brain, we know that it causes all kinds of heart and lung problems – heart arrhythmias, heart attacks, lung damage – things we have not even discovered yet. “This virus has far-reaching consequences that we just do not yet understand, so it is common sense for everyone to take precautions.”

Advertising 3

This ad has not been uploaded yet, but your article continues below.

Content of the article

Zoutman echoes calls from infectious disease doctors and healthcare workers across Ontario: Restore mask orders and other simple and effective safeguards. “They are the simple things: masks, vaccines, ventilation, capacity limits and increased testing. These are protections. they are not restrictions. These are easy things we have learned that are very effective and will reverse and protect as many people as we can. They are extremely effective, but they do not. He’m really crazy. “I just do not understand why we are not doing this,” he said. Members of the Ontario COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Board, including Scientific Director Dr. Peter Johnny, they are calling for the restoration of the mask’s mandate. Speaking to the Canadian press, Johnny warned of a possible “tidal wave” of infections if no masks are worn and urged consistent communication “recommending that (it is) very important right now for everyone to wear masks indoors again”. Increasing testing is also a strategy that Zoutman believes is vital to understanding the full picture of COVID-19 at both regional and provincial levels. “We are flying blind. We do not have the information we need to inform us. We can not tell you if there is a new variant because we need tests to do it. We can not tell you where the cases are, what is happening and how many cases there are. “We really need to open the PCR test,” he said.

Advertising 4

This ad has not been uploaded yet, but your article continues below.

Content of the article

While fewer hospitalizations is always good news, Zoutman suggests that the success of our pandemic response should extend beyond simply keeping people out of hospitals. “We should not judge by how many ICU beds we think we can handle and how many people we can handle in ICU beds, but how many cases can we prevent them from getting sick so that they do not have to go to the hospital in the first place?” he said. “All these people who end up in the hospital are desperately ill and the hospital staff is exhausted. “Many of them get sick themselves and there is a real struggle to make up the difference in the huge accumulation of patients.” With archives from Nicole Thompson, The Canadian Press

Share this article on your social network

Advertising 1

This ad has not been uploaded yet, but your article continues below.