Canada

If so, it seems like another argument in favour of letting most people work from home.

This year I got very sick three times. Once in April/May where I got a severe respiratory infection, again in October where I got a very bad cold and November I got COVID.

My lungs are fucking scrap. I can't stop coughing with mucus all the time. I have low energy. It's very difficult.

And forget about seeing a doctor. You can't see anyone in clinics anymore, ERs are full and hospitals are at 200% capacity.

I've got a kid in daycare so we've been sick since August non stop. Covid was in the mix about a month ago, but it was just one among many illnesses

I'm not surprised hospitals are still loaded. Covid's preventable "temporary" (2yr?3?) hit to hospitals incited people to retire in a permanent fashion. Now any issues with loading and staffing are complicated by recruitment from a really small pool. And family doctors? No one wants to be a family doctor.

While the plural of 'anecdote' isn't 'data', I can confirm that wait times for injuries are stilll somewhat short. It's proper triage in action. Procedures are scheduled fast and the cancellation call list is still your friend. If you're coughing and it sounds like one of the big-three illnesses that are going to be a check-and-release kinda deal, you're going to be there for-ev-er. I'd like to see a second queue to cherry-pick the fevers and colds and get their assessment out of the way, but working that will be a challenge.

It's gonna be a rough winter, and I'm gonna have my face-diaper when I'm in groups or on transit. I don't need that hassle.

But if you miss your doctor, thank your closest anti-vax horse-paste hillbilly; and Fox news for weaponizing them into belligerent know-it-all obstructionists. I haven't heard a retirement story that doesn't include a "belligerent advocate" trigger.

K

This is the best summary I could come up with:

And as health-care teams remain dangerously overstretched, they're also grappling with the pressure of what some physicians are calling a "new norm" for seasonal illnesses — a range of viral and bacterial infections all back in circulation, with COVID-19 still chief among them.

Two pediatric facilities in Montreal held a joint news conference on Wednesday to hammer home the challenges ahead, while urging families to rely on community-based clinics rather than overflowing emergency departments whenever possible.

It's a Canada-wide problem: Data shows millions of Canadians don't have a regular health-care provider, while a new report from Ontario's acting auditor general suggests in that province, one in five patients who visited emergency departments were only there because they lack a family doctor.

"On top of an already elevated baseline, now we're seeing all of the usual fall respiratory illnesses coming in, plus COVID, which never existed four years ago," Dr. Lisa Salamon, an emergency physician in Toronto, told CBC News.

Parts of the U.S., China, Denmark, and several other European countries are all reporting higher levels of pneumonia infections, while South Korean health officials announced hospitalizations for the illness have doubled in the last month, mostly among children.

"Immunity to mycoplasma may have fallen, because many people may not have been exposed to it during times of social distancing," explained Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

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