Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Sylvia Jones in conversation at Queen’s Park, the day after Ontario’s chief medical officer of health ‘strongly recommended’ mask wearing.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
In 2020, with adult ICUs at risk of being overwhelmed, we wore masks and accepted restrictions. Now pediatric intensive care is at risk. Will leaders follow the evidence and tell us to mask up?
A new study finds that misdirected immune responses can persist for months in those who are suffering from long COVID-19.
Amid the latest surge of COVID-19 cases, health care workers yet again are having to make difficult triage decisions in caring for patients.
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ECMO uses an artificial heart and lung to replace the entire function of the person’s own heart and lungs outside the body. And COVID is demanding more ECMO than we’ve ever used before.
Eliana Close, Queensland University of Technology; Ben White, Queensland University of Technology; Lindy Willmott, Queensland University of Technology; Simon Young, University of Southern Queensland; Tina Cockburn, Queensland University of Technology, and Will Cairns, James Cook University
Who gets scarce life-saving resources when hospitals are overwhelmed? And how are these decisions made? State and territory governments are yet to answer these difficult questions.
Plasma therapy sounded great at the start of the pandemic. Give COVID patients blood plasma from people who had recovered. But the evidence is in. It doesn’t work.
Emergency medical technicians aid a COVID-19 patient at his home in Louisville, Kentucky. Like much of the U.S., Louisville is experiencing an uptick in COVID-19 patients requiring emergency transport to medical facilities.
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Medications to treat COVID-19 are in no way a substitute for the vaccine. But under the right circumstances, some show great promise for helping patients.
The term ‘intubation’ is used when experts talk about treating patients with severe COVID-19. But this medical term doesn’t explain the traumatic procedure involved.
Kate Geraghty/PR Handout/St Vincent's Hospital/AAP Photos
It seems things have shifted slightly since earlier in the pandemic. A growing proportion of people hospitalised with the Delta strain are aged in their 30s or 40s.
New treatments target different stages of COVID-19, including before patients become sick enough to need a hospital.
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A year after it became clear that COVID-19 was becoming a pandemic, there is still no cure, but doctors have several innovative treatments. Some are keeping patients out of the hospital entirely.
In the event COVID-19 sees ICU resources stretched too thin, Victoria doesn’t have clear, uniform or transparent guidelines outlining who should be prioritised for care.
A bioethicist argues that the problem of health disparities existed long before COVID-19 struck with a vengeance in marginalized communities.
Geoffrey McKillop (front) with his partner Nicola Dallet McConaghie as they left the hospital where he was discharged after surviving coronavirus.
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Is it possible that people who recover from COVID-19 will be plagued with long term side effects from the infection? An infectious disease physician reviews the evidence so far.
During the pandemic, hospital areas designated for COVID-19 patients are called ‘hot zones.’
(Hannah Kirkham)
The only chaplain in the COVID-19 section of a Montréal hospital offers spiritual care to patients and families, as well to staff, who have found themselves more intimately exposed to life and death.
A recent study suggested the coronavirus could spread up to four metres. But the evidence isn’t strong enough to suggest we should change social distancing advice from 1.5 metres.
Mechanical ventilators are often used in life and death situations, treating patients with pneumonia, brain injury and stroke. One mechanical ventilator can cost up to A$82,000.
Rather than basing decisions about ICU access on age, clinicians need to consider the potential benefits and burdens of treatments proposed for every patient.