Can someone please explain what just happened in the US, and what I can do to prevent a similar thing from happening in Canada? I genuinely do not understand.

Pediatric admissions in Ontario are much higher than historic average now (black line below). Colleagues are seeing high levels of Mycoplasma infections, which is in line with recent outbreaks reported in the US and Europe. Thinking out loud: - Mycoplasma doesn't respond well to antibiotics usually prescribed to kids for throat and ear infections (usually Penicillin based like Amoxil), or to adults for pneumonia (Clavulin/Augmentin). There's significant resistance to Macrolides like Azithromycin (Zpack) due to overuse, especially in Asia. - Testing for it is not accessible to most physicians, usually only available in some hospitals in expanded, expensive, multiplex testing panels - For some of the antibiotics that do work (Fluoroquinolones like Levofloxacin and Moxifloxacin), doctors shy away from due to old concerns about tendon injuries from old animal studies. So I wonder if this means that: - If a patient is not responding well or turning around with an initial first-line antibiotic, consider one that covers atypical infections like Mycoplasma - For kids, I wonder if we should have a lower threshold for doing a chest x-ray to check for a pneumonia, particularly if the child recently had a viral infection from RSV/Flu/C19 etc. - We need urgent guidance from pediatric infectious disease colleagues about local antibiotics resistance patterns for Macrolides, and the safety of prescribing fluoroquinolones regularly to children.

Ontario should stop penalizing family doctors when their patients visit walk-in clinics

Dr. Bonnie Henry just now: "If you've had covid recently, you've had a boost to your immunity. So that's a good thing." No, Dr. Henry, getting covid is NEVER a good thing. It won't help or improve your immune system. Your immune system isn't a muscle, and covid isn't the flu.