Ontario close to running out of ICU beds with new COVID cases rising still

Right now, 701 people are receiving treatment for the novel coronavirus in ICU beds. Projections have that number passing 1000 in the next two weeks, no matter what actions are taken.

Beyond that, the best-case scenario modelled pegs ICU patients peaking by the middle of May 2021, at around 1500. Worst-care scenarios, however, have the number of people occupying ICU beds at more than 2000, and possibly over the current capacity of 2300.

Compounding the problem is the fact that parts of the province have supply problems with the vaccine which is slowing again the rollout yet again.

According to CP24, Adalsteinn Brown, the ON Science Table's co-chair, stated:

"It is not clear that all of these patients would ever even enter an intensive care bed. Even with all the heroic efforts going on across the province to increase capacity right now there may just not be the opportunity to put them (the sickest COVID patients) into these types of beds and not only that there may not be the ability to put other kinds of patients into beds that require intensive care either."

"The sooner we have strong public health measures and strong adherence to public health measures, the sooner that curve changes. The sooner we have strong, stronger vaccination more vaccination, the sooner that starts to change but really in the next week or two, those numbers are baked in, that's not going to change."

When asked about whether, in the light of the above, it was worth it to enact further and stricter lockdown measures, Brown replied:

"People often kind of look at it as some sort of trade off. Have the public health measure or have the economy. It is not a trade off. Every jurisdiction has found itself as cases rise having to impose stronger measures. What I would say is that if we want to move forward with as good of a summer as we can the stronger the measures we have in place and the longer we have them in place will mean that we don’t have to keep doing this."