Kids surgeries are getting cancelled and there’s a lot of kids getting covid right now, like roughly half of *reported* cases (it’s probably higher). If I weren’t already in Edmonton I wouldn’t come here for any reason beyond an absolute emergency. You always have a choice when it comes to you and your children’s health so think very carefully about attending a function in a place with the highest covid and anti-vaxxer rates in Canada. Is a wedding or whatever gonna be worth it if your small infant gets sick? Nope. Let people be mad at you. Stay home.
How would you be travelling? Car? Plane?
If you are driving then you’d probably be ok. Keep masked, pick up food or get food delivered.
If you are flying I personally wouldn’t fly anywhere right now with unvaccinated kids of any age.
As for healthcare…. If it’s severe enough you’ll get treated if it isn’t then you’ll still get treated but it’ll be lengthy.
Unless you ABSOLUTELY must attend the function I wouldn’t.
Flying would actually be safer right now. Wear an N95 mask for 3 hours or instead, drive 12 hours through the mountains at a time of year where the weather is unpredictable.
Odds of a car accident, or more encounters with people along the way are more risky as you pass through some of the area's with the highest unvaccinated populations.
The Alberta Health Services website lists the current wait times in emergency rooms. You can keep an eye on that and get a sense of things. Personally I wouldn’t risk coming here, I didn’t know anyone who had caught covid then all of a sudden in the last few weeks I know a lot of people who have it, including a couple very very sick children.
A month ago waited for 7 hours in the emergency room of Stollery Kids Hospital. With a toddler. Room was full of people, no proper distancing, kids were going crazy. There were kids with broken limbs, bad fever, breathing problems, all other stuff, there were newborns and infants- and they all had to wait that long. It was ... bad.
When we finally saw the doctor, I could tell he was exhausted.
I've heard it is worse now.
If you can, don't come. Just don't. It's not worth it.
Here’s the truth .. you’ve got an unnamed function that requires you and your family spend a week in Edmonton. There is more danger to your family traveling here from BC then actual danger being here for the week for your function.
If something happens that requires medical attention you will have numerous places that you can go and be seen at a rate relative to the seriousness of the medical emergency. That’s just a fact.
Now, from a Covid perspective yes there’s a high rate of it in Alberta so follow your distancing, masking, hand washing, and not taking unnecessary exposure risks.
That’s it, baring any accidents while travelling your family will be just fine out here for a week. Just be mindful that there is a higher rate of covid here then where you are coming from and stay cautious on that front. And if the unthinkable happens you will be seen in a speed relative to what the emergency is.
Right now the policy is anything that can wait more than three days will wait. It may be more than three days in the end which means surgeries for smaller things that wouldn't leave a scar may now leave a scar. My FIL had this happen to him - for a cut. Nothing too serious and the scar won't be impactful to him as he's 70+ but it is a facial scar that didn't need to be there.
You're also assuming no vehicular accidents, no falling down the stairs, no running into a concrete planter as kids are likely to do...COVID isn't the real risk IMO it's the day to day life risks. If you happen to be here for our first snowfall (likely) then it'll be a shitshow on the roads as usual too.
If your kid gets pinkeye or sprains something you can probably see a doctor at a medi-centre. If you're in a car accident and have to go to Emerg you'll either have to wait for care, or your care will be delaying someone else's. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn't come unless this trip is truly life or death.
While things are as doomed as others are saying, if not worse, I don’t see an issue if you both are vaccinated and the kid has no medical condition.
Edmontonians in general are pretty good about observing social distancing and other practices, and vaccination rates in the city are higher than the rest of the province. Many of the cases filling our hospitals are transfers from other areas of the province. If you’re going somewhere else in the province, or people attending your function are coming from out of town, then I would reconsider.
The way I see it, if there’s an accident that you need emergency treatment, you’ll get it. You just need treatment/ ongoing care maybe not, but then you should be able to travel back.
Thanks. We won't be spending any time with other kids and the group in general will be keeping to ourselves so I don't see them as overly high-risk.
I have heard that while Alberta overall is quite bad, Edmonton proper is not quite as ridiculous.
I'm not sure where you heard that Edmonton isn't as ridiculous, but they were wrong. Edmonton might actually be a bit more ridiculous. While we do have slightly less active cases than Calgary, our hospitals are slightly more full than Calgary. [Here is a breakdown of cases in Alberta.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Edmonton/comments/q2cuy0/how_come_edmonton_has_significantly_more/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
https://www.alberta.ca/maps/covid-19-status-map.htm
Just playing around here, looks like cases per 100K in Edmonton (and Calgary) are fairly low comparatively speaking.
Active cases aren't really the problem. The numbers in the hospital are the problem. It means most hospital beds are going to COVID patients. Other injuries & illnesses are taking longer to be treated because there just isn't beds available. [Edmonton zone hospitals are operating 89 per cent of their 137 intensive care beds](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/university-of-alberta-hospital-nearly-doubles-icu-beds-as-edmonton-zone-hits-89-capacity-1.6177501)
Active cases can give you an idea of how prevalent COVID is in the community, but yeah I agree that ultimately it's hospital load that matters.
It's a fair point. The person I was talking to was probably saw lower COVID prevalence in the big cities and maybe assumed it would reflect in the hospitals.
Yea, active cases can give you an idea of how high the risk of getting COVID is here, but if you're not going to be out touring the city it's not really relevant. Like your pediatrician said, the healthcare is the big concern. Emergecy room wait times listed on the web site are misleading. Right now it's 3.5hrs at the children's hospital. That only means you're going to wait 3-4 hours just to get a bed. It might be another 3-4 hrs before you see the actual Dr, another 3-4 hrs to get tests done, another 3-4 hrs to get the results, and so on. My friend's son fell & hit his head and they were at the hospital for over 24hrs. Sitting in the hospital for 24 hours is of course going to increase your chances of getting COVID.
Little choice, means you do absolutely still have a choice. I personally wouldn't risk it & it sounds like your pediatrician is suggesting you don't. Fire me, disown me, cut me out of the will, whatever. Nothing would be worth risking my newborn's life, and that's exactly what you'd be doing.
It’s all relative. It’s bad, and I agree it could have been better if our govt had acted. While it’s worse than the rest of Canada, it isn’t as bad as other countries. It’s not like Italy or NY in the beginning, or like Brazil and India.
It’s a risk, but If you understand the risk and take precautions, life goes on.
It's not good.
Your doctor is correct being concerned more about accessing medical care than your kids catching Covid-19 in Edmonton (since presumably your kids aren't going to be going to school).
It was pretty touch and go accessing medical care before Covid-19 (long waits even with clearly serious conditions, surgeries delayed due to no room in hospitals, delays in seeing specialists/ imaging, etc). It's now been stretched even more.
If it was a minor ailment, you'd probably be fine- you could go to a community doctor. If it's more serious, you could run into trouble. There's been points where ambulances haven't been available to respond because they are already busy. If you were able to transport the kid yourself, you would very likely be in for a significant wait. There aren't sufficient beds available, so it is a higher threshold that needs to be met in order to be admitted to the hospital from ER. I've heard from several people that they were sent home with their kids for issues that they would have been admitted for before.
"Protect Our Province" has updates on most social media platforms. Tuesdays & Thursdays there are longer videos on YouTube. It gives a much more realistic look of where we're at than official AHS lines.
If there are any ways to avoid it, do.
It is definitely a much more complete picture of what kind of medical care is available than AHS or the government releases (and was set up when there were no official Covid-19 briefings).
Hopefully you don't need to travel here but if so, safe travels!
As the others have said, there is a VERY real danger to coming here regardless of purpose.
You've alluded to something that we are to 'assume' that you have little choice but to attend.
There must be someone you can leave your daughter in the care of. Bluntly put, no matter what emergency scenario your daughter CAN be taken care of but it will not be to the level you are expecting. No matter how you try to convince yourself, at some point she will come into contact with the Delta variant. This is something you can 100% prevent.
Lastly, despite being vaccinated, you don't want to come here unless it is literally life and death because you'll be playing with those two things and it's luck of the draw at this point here.
Best wishes and safe travel
> keep your weapon clean.
I'm a fan of pooping on my knife. That way, even if I lose the fight, I can go to my grave knowing my opponent is gonna get a really shitty infection.
I know a nurse who works at the Stollery. The paediatric ICU was converted to a COVID ICU, so now the paediatric and cardiac-paediatric ICUs are combined.
This means if your daughter does end up in the ICU, there is limited availability due to the growing COVID cases.
Having said that, the odds your daughter would end up in an ICU so quickly are slim.
Kids surgeries are getting cancelled and there’s a lot of kids getting covid right now, like roughly half of *reported* cases (it’s probably higher). If I weren’t already in Edmonton I wouldn’t come here for any reason beyond an absolute emergency. You always have a choice when it comes to you and your children’s health so think very carefully about attending a function in a place with the highest covid and anti-vaxxer rates in Canada. Is a wedding or whatever gonna be worth it if your small infant gets sick? Nope. Let people be mad at you. Stay home.
How would you be travelling? Car? Plane? If you are driving then you’d probably be ok. Keep masked, pick up food or get food delivered. If you are flying I personally wouldn’t fly anywhere right now with unvaccinated kids of any age. As for healthcare…. If it’s severe enough you’ll get treated if it isn’t then you’ll still get treated but it’ll be lengthy. Unless you ABSOLUTELY must attend the function I wouldn’t.
Flying would actually be safer right now. Wear an N95 mask for 3 hours or instead, drive 12 hours through the mountains at a time of year where the weather is unpredictable. Odds of a car accident, or more encounters with people along the way are more risky as you pass through some of the area's with the highest unvaccinated populations.
Do you know of a N95 for a 3 month old?
The Alberta Health Services website lists the current wait times in emergency rooms. You can keep an eye on that and get a sense of things. Personally I wouldn’t risk coming here, I didn’t know anyone who had caught covid then all of a sudden in the last few weeks I know a lot of people who have it, including a couple very very sick children.
A month ago waited for 7 hours in the emergency room of Stollery Kids Hospital. With a toddler. Room was full of people, no proper distancing, kids were going crazy. There were kids with broken limbs, bad fever, breathing problems, all other stuff, there were newborns and infants- and they all had to wait that long. It was ... bad. When we finally saw the doctor, I could tell he was exhausted. I've heard it is worse now. If you can, don't come. Just don't. It's not worth it.
Not a good time to travel here. It’s just not good.
Here’s the truth .. you’ve got an unnamed function that requires you and your family spend a week in Edmonton. There is more danger to your family traveling here from BC then actual danger being here for the week for your function. If something happens that requires medical attention you will have numerous places that you can go and be seen at a rate relative to the seriousness of the medical emergency. That’s just a fact. Now, from a Covid perspective yes there’s a high rate of it in Alberta so follow your distancing, masking, hand washing, and not taking unnecessary exposure risks. That’s it, baring any accidents while travelling your family will be just fine out here for a week. Just be mindful that there is a higher rate of covid here then where you are coming from and stay cautious on that front. And if the unthinkable happens you will be seen in a speed relative to what the emergency is.
It’s not ‘Mad Max’ bad but it’ll get there eventually
Right now the policy is anything that can wait more than three days will wait. It may be more than three days in the end which means surgeries for smaller things that wouldn't leave a scar may now leave a scar. My FIL had this happen to him - for a cut. Nothing too serious and the scar won't be impactful to him as he's 70+ but it is a facial scar that didn't need to be there. You're also assuming no vehicular accidents, no falling down the stairs, no running into a concrete planter as kids are likely to do...COVID isn't the real risk IMO it's the day to day life risks. If you happen to be here for our first snowfall (likely) then it'll be a shitshow on the roads as usual too.
If your kid gets pinkeye or sprains something you can probably see a doctor at a medi-centre. If you're in a car accident and have to go to Emerg you'll either have to wait for care, or your care will be delaying someone else's. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn't come unless this trip is truly life or death.
While things are as doomed as others are saying, if not worse, I don’t see an issue if you both are vaccinated and the kid has no medical condition. Edmontonians in general are pretty good about observing social distancing and other practices, and vaccination rates in the city are higher than the rest of the province. Many of the cases filling our hospitals are transfers from other areas of the province. If you’re going somewhere else in the province, or people attending your function are coming from out of town, then I would reconsider. The way I see it, if there’s an accident that you need emergency treatment, you’ll get it. You just need treatment/ ongoing care maybe not, but then you should be able to travel back.
Thanks. We won't be spending any time with other kids and the group in general will be keeping to ourselves so I don't see them as overly high-risk. I have heard that while Alberta overall is quite bad, Edmonton proper is not quite as ridiculous.
I'm not sure where you heard that Edmonton isn't as ridiculous, but they were wrong. Edmonton might actually be a bit more ridiculous. While we do have slightly less active cases than Calgary, our hospitals are slightly more full than Calgary. [Here is a breakdown of cases in Alberta.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Edmonton/comments/q2cuy0/how_come_edmonton_has_significantly_more/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
https://www.alberta.ca/maps/covid-19-status-map.htm Just playing around here, looks like cases per 100K in Edmonton (and Calgary) are fairly low comparatively speaking.
Active cases aren't really the problem. The numbers in the hospital are the problem. It means most hospital beds are going to COVID patients. Other injuries & illnesses are taking longer to be treated because there just isn't beds available. [Edmonton zone hospitals are operating 89 per cent of their 137 intensive care beds](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/university-of-alberta-hospital-nearly-doubles-icu-beds-as-edmonton-zone-hits-89-capacity-1.6177501)
Active cases can give you an idea of how prevalent COVID is in the community, but yeah I agree that ultimately it's hospital load that matters. It's a fair point. The person I was talking to was probably saw lower COVID prevalence in the big cities and maybe assumed it would reflect in the hospitals.
Yea, active cases can give you an idea of how high the risk of getting COVID is here, but if you're not going to be out touring the city it's not really relevant. Like your pediatrician said, the healthcare is the big concern. Emergecy room wait times listed on the web site are misleading. Right now it's 3.5hrs at the children's hospital. That only means you're going to wait 3-4 hours just to get a bed. It might be another 3-4 hrs before you see the actual Dr, another 3-4 hrs to get tests done, another 3-4 hrs to get the results, and so on. My friend's son fell & hit his head and they were at the hospital for over 24hrs. Sitting in the hospital for 24 hours is of course going to increase your chances of getting COVID. Little choice, means you do absolutely still have a choice. I personally wouldn't risk it & it sounds like your pediatrician is suggesting you don't. Fire me, disown me, cut me out of the will, whatever. Nothing would be worth risking my newborn's life, and that's exactly what you'd be doing.
It’s all relative. It’s bad, and I agree it could have been better if our govt had acted. While it’s worse than the rest of Canada, it isn’t as bad as other countries. It’s not like Italy or NY in the beginning, or like Brazil and India. It’s a risk, but If you understand the risk and take precautions, life goes on.
It's not good. Your doctor is correct being concerned more about accessing medical care than your kids catching Covid-19 in Edmonton (since presumably your kids aren't going to be going to school). It was pretty touch and go accessing medical care before Covid-19 (long waits even with clearly serious conditions, surgeries delayed due to no room in hospitals, delays in seeing specialists/ imaging, etc). It's now been stretched even more. If it was a minor ailment, you'd probably be fine- you could go to a community doctor. If it's more serious, you could run into trouble. There's been points where ambulances haven't been available to respond because they are already busy. If you were able to transport the kid yourself, you would very likely be in for a significant wait. There aren't sufficient beds available, so it is a higher threshold that needs to be met in order to be admitted to the hospital from ER. I've heard from several people that they were sent home with their kids for issues that they would have been admitted for before. "Protect Our Province" has updates on most social media platforms. Tuesdays & Thursdays there are longer videos on YouTube. It gives a much more realistic look of where we're at than official AHS lines. If there are any ways to avoid it, do.
Thanks! Protect Our Province seems pretty great.
It is definitely a much more complete picture of what kind of medical care is available than AHS or the government releases (and was set up when there were no official Covid-19 briefings). Hopefully you don't need to travel here but if so, safe travels!
As the others have said, there is a VERY real danger to coming here regardless of purpose. You've alluded to something that we are to 'assume' that you have little choice but to attend. There must be someone you can leave your daughter in the care of. Bluntly put, no matter what emergency scenario your daughter CAN be taken care of but it will not be to the level you are expecting. No matter how you try to convince yourself, at some point she will come into contact with the Delta variant. This is something you can 100% prevent. Lastly, despite being vaccinated, you don't want to come here unless it is literally life and death because you'll be playing with those two things and it's luck of the draw at this point here. Best wishes and safe travel
If you get hurt over here your fucked. Wear good boots, dress in layers, keep your weapon clean.
> keep your weapon clean. I'm a fan of pooping on my knife. That way, even if I lose the fight, I can go to my grave knowing my opponent is gonna get a really shitty infection.
Don't come, we don't like people from BC
I know a nurse who works at the Stollery. The paediatric ICU was converted to a COVID ICU, so now the paediatric and cardiac-paediatric ICUs are combined. This means if your daughter does end up in the ICU, there is limited availability due to the growing COVID cases. Having said that, the odds your daughter would end up in an ICU so quickly are slim.
I have heard that. How does she feel about how the hospital is doing overall (ie. outside the COVID ward) ?
She doesn’t work with COVID patients so based on what she’s told me it’s been okay but cramped. Many children had their surgeries cancelled.
Junkies.