Thread by @OttawaHealth

THIS MIGHT NOT BE PLEASANT, BUT PLEASE READ IT ANYWAY

Today we expect the Province to announce further protective measures in response to the levels of COVID in Ottawa.

We know this may not be welcome news for everyone, but it is necessary.

Let's discuss, in 13 tweets. (1/13)

So, this is easily the most candid thing we've written since the pandemic began.

Simply put: our healthcare system is exhausted.

It’s been 13 grueling months, and the pace hasn’t slowed once. If anything, it’s increased.

The fact that any of the amazing humans involved (2/13)

in this pandemic response are still standing is nothing short of amazing. 

None of us can keep up w/cases like this. If it continues, it'll break us.

Nearly 1K people have tested positive for COVID in the past 7 days and we've seen about 4 high-risk contacts per case. (3/13)

So that's FOUR THOUSAND people to attempt to contact trace. Any way you look at it, it's just not possible. 

Yes, we will continue to follow up with people who test positive, but further contact tracing has simply become unmanageable. (4/13)

If you've tested positive, you MUST isolate & you MUST reach out to anyone you've been in close contact with and tell them to seek testing.

Hint for everyone reading this: limiting your contacts will make that task much easier on you if you do test positive. Just saying. (5/13)

Btw, we've given up on trying to write clever segues.

Further measures are clearly needed if we’re going to turn this around. But regardless of whether we're in Red, Grey etc, our actions need to be the same.

We won't bore you with listing them. We all know them by now. (6/13)

Our goal can't be to "get through to the end of the shutdown", it must be to bring COVID levels down. It's about metrics, not time. COVID doesn't own a calendar.

We must act based on keeping each other safe, not on what zone we're in. (7/13)

Remember back in January? Through our collective efforts, we worked hard & turned the numbers around and brought things back.

And that, friends, is how we'll get through this. 

Yes, the vaccines are here. But their supply has been limited & no amount of vaccines will (8/13)

change today's case counts. Or tomorrow's.

Until we've administered enough doses to begin having a real impact on the spread of COVID, it's up to us to bring this back. 

This thread should've ended here. It's already sooo long. But we need to address one more thing. (9/13)

In tweet 2/13, we said we've been at this for thirteen grueling months. Well, so have you. 
 
You've spent 13 months listening to health officials say we need to "do our part". 

The unspoken message was "do our part to get us to the point when the vaccines arrive”.  (10/13)

Well, we don't blame you if you feel like the rollout thus far could've been better. And for what it's worth, we're sorry for how frustrating it's been.

But we've said this before, & we'll say it again: none of us can change the past.

What we CAN do is focus on getting (11/13)

out of this pandemic as quickly as we can. 

And we'll do that by enacting protective measures, doing our respective parts and working together. 

This virus isn't stronger than us & we will NOT let it define this moment in our history.  (12/13)

This moment will forever be marked by this community of one million incredible humans coming together more than we ever have in Ottawa's history to achieve a shared goal of protecting each other.

 To quote our dear Bruce Reynolds, "we will do this". 

-OPH out  (13/13)