It's not just COVID anymore, or a triple-demic. Welcome to the 'new norm' of seasonal illnesses

It's another busy fall in Canadian hospitals, with emergency department closures, long wait times, and ongoing staff shortages all making headlines.

The situation can turn deadly: Two people died while waiting for care at the Anna-Laberge hospital in Châteauguay, Que., just last week. 

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.

"This is probably the first year since COVID started where we are seeing the anticipated viruses, the anticipated escalation of volumes, that we saw before we were faced with a pandemic," warned Dr. Laurie Plotnick, medical director of the emergency department at the Montreal Children's Hospital, where the average occupancy rate was close to 160 per cent throughout much of November. 

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.

Children are coming in with an array of ailments, from fevers to bronchitis to pneumonia, officials said. Those high volumes add pressure at a time when hospitals are short-staffed on their inpatient units, leaving few beds available when children need to be hospitalized on the wards. 

But telling families to avoid emergency rooms and seek care elsewhere may be a tough pill to swallow. Plenty of children simply don't have family physicians, Plotnick noted. 

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.

Meanwhile emergency departments from Alberta to Ontario to Quebec are reporting hours-long wait times in the face of those ongoing pressures.

Against that backdrop, federal data shows the country's respiratory virus season is well underway, adding fuel to the fire.

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) activity is rising and above expected levels, and flu activity is increasing as well. 

COVID, meanwhile, is still circulating widely.

From Nov. 21 to 28, the number of COVID-19 patients in hospital increased, the latest national figures show. Public Health Ontario's respiratory virus dashboard currently shows 20 per cent test positivity for COVID, far higher than any other viral threat.

"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.