Jarvis: It doesn’t seem like we’re all in this together; It feels like we’re all alone

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A family member suffers from a sore throat, possible fever, and chills.

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Is it COVID-19?

Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows?

Because if you don’t need a hospital, you are alone.

There are so many cases that Ontario cannot evaluate all people with symptoms. The government reported 13,500 new cases on Monday, but in reality, “we have no idea,” said Windsor Regional Hospital executive director David Musyj, whose hospital operates an assessment center. “The daily numbers don’t really mean much right now.”

Thus, Ontario has been forced to focus on hospital admissions to gauge the severity of this fifth wave that feels like wave 555.

“Based on current trends,” Prime Minister Doug Ford said Monday, announcing a three-week partial shutdown and canceling elective surgeries, “our public health experts tell us we could see hundreds of thousands of cases every day.”

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That is awesome.

Expect 20 to 30 percent absenteeism across the economy, he warned, as people get sick.

Schools are closed until at least January 17 because the government predicts that there will not be enough teachers to staff them.

“We are not going to be able to stop him. We will have to smooth it out as best we can, ”said Ontario Medical Director of Health Dr. Kieran Moore.

Access to publicly funded PCR testing is restricted to people who are symptomatic and at high risk for severe disease or who live in high-risk settings.

And good luck finding a rapid antigen test. Those offered by the government here before Christmas are over in an hour and pharmacies don’t have them.

So if you feel sick, the government is advising you, assume it is COVID-19, stay home and warn your friends.

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It is as if we have all been surrogates as surrogate physicians and public health experts.

A press release from the Windsor Essex County Health Unit on Monday listed the most common symptoms to look for. There are a dozen. Many are the same symptoms that you would experience if you had a cold or the flu.

If you find out that you likely have COVID-19, isolate yourself. But there are new rules for isolation, and they are different for people who are vaccinated and those who are not. Better click on the links for instructions because the health unit doesn’t have time to call you.

And warn everyone you’ve been in close contact with because the health unit doesn’t have time to do that either. The federal government also removed its COVID Alert app because very few people used it.

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What should you tell your friends? Who might or might not have been exposed to COVID-19? What might or might not need to be insulated? At least you know not to tell them to get tested.

It doesn’t seem like we’re all in this together. It feels like we’re all alone.

The only saving grace is that there is clearer evidence that the Omicron variant causes less severe disease than the Delta variant. A Public Health Ontario study shows that the risk of hospitalization and death from Omicron is 54% lower than from Delta.

Still, about 1 percent of people infected with Omicron will need hospital care, Ford said. And one percent of potentially hundreds of thousands of cases adds up to far more beds than we have.

“The Ontario Health model tells us that we could have thousands of short beds in the next few weeks,” he said.

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Admissions are in the triple digits every day now.

“If we do not do everything possible to control this variant, the results could be catastrophic,” said the prime minister.

Statnews.com, the Boston Globe’s health news website, asked Mike Ryan, the World Health Organization’s chief of health emergencies, if there are things he wishes the world had done differently.

“This interview could take a while,” he replied.

“The biggest collective flaw has been that we have underestimated this microbe,” he said.

“Time and time again, governments have tried to get back to normal and have overshot that track by opening too early. Release restrictions too soon. They have not really convinced or empowered people to continue with these basic measures to reduce the risk of infection. “

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It is not suggesting that we should have closed for two years. He cited countries that have maintained strict measures of masks, physical distance and tests. He called it a “more complete layered strategy.” They haven’t been closed, but they haven’t been fully opened either.

“They have taken the corner without understeer or oversteer,” he said. “They have gotten people to buy into the idea that it will take a long time and that it will have to be a sustained effort. I think if everyone had done that, maybe we would be in a better place. “

But we didn’t. So here we are, beginning our third year in this pandemic.

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