Revealing New Facets of COVID Danger

"[The people whose deaths are now being investigated had symptoms] but not severe symptoms to the point they would anticipate going to the hospital."

"People are appearing to die outside of hospital, which we hadn't seen earlier."

"It was important for people to have the perspective that it can be very serious and fatal." 

"It is really sad for the people who were ill with this and for the people they lived with. For us as Ontarians, it is such a tough thing."

"It is another example of the seriousness and sadness that comes along with this terrible virus."

"These were people that weren’t necessarily appearing, based upon their symptoms, to be needing to go to hospital or an ambulance to be called. So it’s not that people were ignoring symptoms from what I’ve read ... these were people who did have stable conditions and then deteriorated very quickly."

"We are still evaluating and trying to understand all of the circumstances,” the coroner added. “But certainly, it’s notable in the fact that this is a younger population ... who are suffering serious consequences in the form of death in a quicker period of time than we saw in the past."

Dr.Dirk Huyer, chief coroner, head, Ontario outbreak response team

In an alarming new trend, people are dying at home from COVID-19 as the third wave of the pandemic increasingly fills hospitals with patients who are younger and sicker.  The Toronto Star

 

A thirteen-year-old girl living in Brampton just outside Toronto died in her home on April 22, hours after her father found her in an unresponsive condition in her bed. He rushed her to hospital, too late. Emily Viegas was one of the youngest Canadians to die of COVID-19. Her father, a worker in a factory, had been vaccinated. Her mother, with serious symptoms of COVID, is in hospital. The young girl developed symptoms similar to her mother's, but her father decided to look after her at home, fearful that she would be moved to a distant hospital. Her illness proceeded so rapidly there was no opportunity to fully comprehend that death was imminent. But it was.

Most hospitals in Toronto are so packed with severely ill COVID patients, they have been moving patients to other hospitals in the province for relief, and in anticipation that whenever they open up a bed, new patients will soon arrive to take up residence in those beds. Seemingly suddenly a new phenomenon has been appearing with COVID-19-infected people; their conditions worsen so swiftly there is no time to react, and they die at home.  It is sudden, and unexpected, a disturbing trend flagged by the province's chief coroner.

According to Dr.Dirk Huyer, deaths at home of COVID-19 patients are occurring in greater numbers, on some days as many as two cases surface. At least 40 deaths of people who appear to have died of COVID-19-related illness in their homes, are being investigated by his office. Most of the people who died, not realizing the severity of their symptoms caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, lived with others in the household. This third wave of the pandemic has turned out to be more complex, troubling and infectious than the previous two.

The deaths have occurred among people under age 70. The central region of the province has produced 25 cases the coroner's office is in the process of investigating; all of them deaths that occurred from the beginning of April forward. Only deaths where "non-natural or sudden" describes them, are investigated by the coroner's office. Those deaths under investigation are of people ranging between ages 30 and 80, the majority of whom were younger. Of 25 people who died in the province's central region, sixteen were under age 60.

During this third wave of the pandemic the province is seeing people younger and sicker than what occurred in the earlier waves, reflecting in part that most long-term care and retirement home residents are now vaccinated, as are large segments of elderly people living within communities. It is not yet known whether those who died in their homes from sudden worsening conditions had been infected with variants of concern, but a review is under way.

 

Emily Victoria Viega, a 13-year-old girl from Brampton, died due to COVID-19. (Maria Viegas/Facebook.)