Ottawa could see 200 COVID-19 hospitalizations by next week, says deputy medical officer of health

Ottawa’s COVID-19 hospitalization numbers are doubling every 12 days — ICU admissions even faster — and it's a trend that could spell trouble for the city’s hospitals.

According to Dr. Brent Moloughney, deputy chief medical officer of health, if this trend continues, Ottawa’s hospitals will not be able to keep up with the demand, and hospital beds will be at their max.

“Our current trend in hospitalizations is rapidly rising and is much higher than any other of the peaks than we have seen ever since this COVID pandemic started for us,” Dr. Moloughney said Wednesday “Already we’re seeing scheduled procedures being cancelled; we’re seeing things that we’ve never seen before where paediatric hospitals are freeing up space in their ICUs to take on young adults who need care.”

Right now, he added, 85 per cent of people in hospital with the virus, are patients 50 years old and above.

“That’s why we’re focusing on the age group for immunizations so that we can protect those that are most vulnerable to being hospitalized.”

Dr. Moloughney explained that Ottawa already has about 100 people in hospital with the virus.

Then there’s the group of people who are have started to develop symptoms — and some of these people will go on to require hospitalizations.

“Those infections have already happened, and the need for these hospitalizations have already occurred — it just hasn’t happened yet,” Dr. Moloughney explained. “So, the hospitals already are needing to plan — not only how they’ll be handling 100 patients — but 200, because if this trend continues, that’s the number of hospitalizations that will occur sometime by next week.”

And if that doubling continues, the city could be looking at 400 hospitalizations and 120 ICU beds occupied with COVID-19 patients, which Dr. Moloughney warned is a completely different order of magnitude and a major challenge for hospitals in how they provide care to all patients — not just COVID patients.

“We’re at a major point at this city,” he said. “I felt it important to say that this is where we are and why we need to focus on bending this curve as quickly as possible.”