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Healthcare professionals offer tips to reduce risk during festive gatherings amid the sixth wave.
Publication date:
April 15, 2022 • 5 hours ago • 15 minutes of reading Paramedics take a patient to the emergency department of Saint-Mary Hospital in Montreal. Photo by John Mahoney / Montreal Gazette
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Updated all day on Friday, April 15th. Questions / Comments: ariga@postmedia.com
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Top updates
- Montreal residents have called for avoiding overcrowded hospital emergency rooms
- Two difficult weeks ahead for Quebec’s emergency services dealing with COVID-19, flu, sick staff
- Stool-persistent coronavirus provides evidence of long-term COVID
- Healthcare professionals offer tips to reduce risk during festive gatherings amid the sixth wave
- Note: Updated COVID numbers are not available
- Beware of pandemic fatigue – sub-option BA.2 remains dangerous, experts say
- Quebec marks “significant” increase in cases last week, CIRANO research center estimates
- Aislin: Navigation on the sixth wave
- Ontario’s chief physician will recommend extending the mandate of the transit mask
- The rules are over, but many Montreal students still wear masks in class
- “Parents need to be informed”: Montreal mother warns of rare post-COVID syndrome
- Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions fell in the first year of the pandemic
- Long COVID: The invisible public health crisis fueling labor shortages
- Shanghai is turning homes into COVID isolation facilities, sparking protests
- Guide to COVID in Quebec: Vaccinations, testing
- Sign up for our free coronavirus nightly newsletter
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4 o’clock in the afternoon
Thanks for reading
Please note that our blog and newsletter will not be published on Monday due to the holiday.
But both will return on Tuesday. One of my colleagues will take over as I leave on Tuesday and Wednesday
You can follow all our coverage through the coronavirus page.
My previous live blogs about COVID-19 are available here.
15:35
Montreal residents have called for avoiding overcrowded hospital emergency rooms
Quebec did not publish updated statistics on the situation with COVID-19 in the province today due to the Easter holiday.
However, there was new evidence that the pandemic continued to wreak havoc on provincial hospitals.
This morning, Montreal’s public health department urged residents to avoid emergency departments because they are overwhelmed.
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Hours later, health authorities in the Outaouais region of western Quebec suspended all hospital visits until further notice, as several health institutions in the region deal with COVID-19 outbreaks.
The news comes a day after Health Minister Christian Dubet said the next two weeks would be difficult in the province’s emergency departments.
Many people living in nursing homes are expected to go to the emergency department in the coming days due to COVID, flu or other reasons.
“Often these people, if they are sick, we can’t bring them back to their homes right away, so that causes overcrowding,” Dube said.
Hospitals are also experiencing difficulties because 13,000 health workers are absent due to COVID
In a statement released online today, the Outawa Center for the Integration of Social Services and Social Services said it was suspending visits “to ensure the protection of our most vulnerable consumers, health workers and the public”.
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It says caregivers will be able to continue visiting relatives to help them. Visits for humanitarian reasons also remain possible. However, caregivers and people who want to visit for humanitarian reasons cannot enter hospitals if they have symptoms, health officials said.
These are the hospitals affected:
- Gatineau Hospital
- Hull Hospital
- Papino Hospital
- Manivaki Hospital
- Shoville Hospital
- Wakefield Hospital
- Pierre Janet Hospital
On Thursday, the head of the Quebec Association of Emergency Physicians warned that the next two weeks would be difficult.
Hospitals are facing a “perfect storm” of problems – an influx of patients with COVID and influenza in the midst of severe labor shortages, said the president of the Association of Specialists and Medicine Dr. Gilbert Boucher to the Canadian Press.
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“There are many more viruses in two or three weeks,” he said. “(Gastroenteritis) lasts for four to six weeks, the flu hits us a little, but there are a lot of small viruses right now.
He said, “It’s kind of like a perfect storm – we haven’t seen these numbers of patients in almost two years. It’s very difficult and the next two weeks will be quite difficult.”
❗️Emergency departments are very busy.
When should you move there?
👉 Only if your health requires immediate care. pic.twitter.com/HXo632wGAJ
– Health Montreal (@santemontreal) April 15, 2022
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14:50
Chinese truck drivers remain blocked for days at the motorway exit due to hard COVID curbs
From Reuters:
Earlier this month, Chinese truck driver Dong Jigan finished work in the coastal city of Nantong and began a four-hour journey north to his home village in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province. On Friday, nine sticky days in his cab later, he had not yet returned home.
Like many Chinese truck drivers, the 30-year-old Dong has fallen victim to some of the country’s latest tough measures against COVID and disruption as local authorities struggle to uphold China’s zero COVID policy.
He reached an exit from a highway leading to his village before officials told him he would need 14 days of centralized quarantine to enter at least 240 RMB a day, followed by another seven days of home quarantine.
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“We couldn’t afford it,” the father of two told Reuters, referring to the group of four to five trucks he was waiting for.
Dong had a negative COVID test that day and was not in medium or high risk areas. But employees were not in the mood for discussion.
He said he was told, “I don’t care where you come from.”
Locals provided drivers with two meals a day at home, but there was no toilet or shower.
On Thursday night, a group of more than a dozen riot police, including several SWAT officers, told Dong and his fellow drivers that they should leave immediately or be fined and lose their driver’s licenses.
Officials said they did not care where the drivers were going, according to Dong. So the group agreed and moved to another exit higher up the highway.
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A village official later contacted the group and said they could count their days parked along the highway to their 14 days in centralized quarantine, significantly reducing costs.
Dong, desperate to return home to complete his emergency work on the farm, agreed to leave and waited for quarantine on Friday. But at least one member of the group, named Wang, told Reuters he would stay where he was.
Hundreds of toll booths and highway services have closed across the country this month, official figures show.
“I would drive seven or eight hours without a break,” Dong said. “There was nowhere to get off the highway.”
Following the government’s insistence earlier this week on opening routes, that number has fallen in many areas. But as of midnight on Thursday, 91 toll road exits and 44 highway service stations in Jiangsu Province remained closed, government figures said.
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The Jiangsu government did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment or on Dong’s long wait.
While COVID requirements vary widely in China, many settlements have recently taken increasingly cautious approaches.
Dong said his order and revenue have halved since early March due to the impact of COVID’s policies.
13:10
Stool-persistent coronavirus provides evidence of long-term COVID
From the Bloomberg news agency:
Patients with COVID-19 may retain the coronavirus in their faeces for months after infection, the researchers said, raising concerns that its resistance could worsen the immune system and cause long-term symptoms of COVID.
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In the largest study tracking SARS-CoV-2 RNA in stool and symptoms of COVID, researchers at Stanford University in California found that about half of infected patients excreted traces of the virus in their waste in the week after infection and nearly 4% of patients still broadcast them seven months later.
The researchers also linked coronavirus RNA in the stool to stomach upsets and concluded that SARS-CoV-2 may directly infect the gastrointestinal tract, where it can hide.
“This raises the question that ongoing infections in hidden parts of the body may be important for …
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