Relatively few Canadians have contracted the novel coronavirus and fewer still have died from it. But COVID-19 is already having a tangible impact on thousands of the ill in Canada as hospitals postpone elective surgeries and transplants and clear out clinics and wards to ready for a possible wave of infected patients.
The moves — many announced in just the last few days — are designed partly to prevent sick and immune-compromised patients from being infected by COVID-19, but mostly to free up critical-care space and equipment should the pandemic suddenly spike.
The rationale is that even if a surgery is not urgent, those patients often spend time in the intensive-care unit and occupy a ward bed, resources that would be desperately needed if Canada experiences an Italy-like surge in COVID-19 cases.
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