Thread by @jeffgilchrist

COVID-19: ICU costs in Canada

A Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) report shows that COVID-19 patients remain in hospital for about 15 days and the average cost per COVID-19 patient in the ICU is more than $50,000 ( cihi.ca/en/covid-19-ho… ). 🧵1/

The average cost for treating a patient with COVID-19 is more than $23,000 which is 4x higher than a patient with influenza. For those that are still uncertain, even financial data can tell you and come to the conclusion that COVID-19 is significantly worse than the flu. 2/

Unfortunately 1 in 5 COVID-19 patients admitted to the ICU dies there. CIHI estimated the hospitalization cost of COVID-19 in Canada (excluding Quebec) was nearly $1 billion from January 2020 to March 2021 and the cost tripled between November 2020 and March 2021. 3/

The report provided the average estimated cost of a hospital stay for several conditions:
- $27,093 = Kidney transplant
- $23,111 = COVID-19
- $8,433 = Pneumonia
- $7,446 = Heart attack
- $6,349 = Average hospital stay (non-COVID)
- $4,959 = Influenza

4/

Looking specifically at the ICU, COVID-19 patients stay for 21 days on average and are much sicker than most other patients. "The one major distinction about COVID patients in the ICU is they stay a long time. 5/

They take a long time to recover, if they recover at all," says Dr. Donald Redelmeier, a professor at the University of Toronto's faculty of medicine ( cbc.ca/news/health/ci… ). 6/

Since Dec. 14, 2020 (when COVID-19 vaccines began in Ontario) until Sept. 4, 2021 there have only been 25 fully vaccinated individuals in the ICU and only 1 under the age of 50 (

https://twitter.com/zchagla/status/1438307155770236930?s=21

). 7/

Just in the last 2 months there have been nearly 300 ICU admissions and 0 fully vaccinated deaths under the age of 50. Ontario has released data showing the impact of vaccines ( publichealthontario.ca/-/media/docume… ). 8/

In the past 30 days, unvaccinated individuals were 7.9 times more likely to become infected than fully vaccinated individuals. 9/

In the past 30 days, unvaccinated adults 60 years of age or older were approximately 30.3 times more likely to be hospitalized due to COVID-19 compared to those fully vaccinated. You can see the difference in hospitalization rates in the graph. 10/

Alberta is now requesting potential help from Ontario and Quebec to take ICU patients in their crumbling healthcare system due to COVID-19 hospitalizations amongst mostly unvaccinated individuals ( cbc.ca/news/canada/ed… ). 11/

Alberta health care workers are now being briefed on the critical care triage protocol which describes how to cope if intensive care units no longer have the resources to care for every critically ill patient ( cbc.ca/news/canada/ed… ). 12/

The protocol has never been enacted but with 20 new COVID patients admitted to the ICU every day, they are getting ready to use it. "I can not stress enough how serious the situation is in our hospitals" said Dr. Verna Yiu, president and CEO of Alberta Health Services. 13/

With the majority of hospitalized COVID patients being unvaccinated, you can start to understand why provinces are implementing vaccine passports to help protect hospitals from becoming overwhelmed which they already are in some places in Canada. 14/

The main goal is to increase vaccine uptake, so that even if breakthrough infections can happen, the people will unlikely be hospitalized. 15/

Another significant objective is preventing unvaccinated people from entering potential super-spreading environments such as high-risk indoor locations ( cbc.ca/news/health/va… ). 16/

This Alberta nurse gives you an idea of what it is like there right now: globalnews.ca/video/rd/5c412… 17/