TORONTO -- A Toronto emergency room physician is sharing images of lungs filled with fluid to show the devastating toll COVID-19 is taking on some young people.
In two images shared, both showing the lungs mostly in white, Dr. Kashif Pirzada said patients in this state would have enormous trouble breathing.
"They would look extremely tired, which they were when we saw them, and they would be struggling to breathe," Pirzada said.
One image shows the lungs of a 30-year-old. The other a 35-year-old teacher with infected with the U.K. variant.
"All of us are kind of shocked how young these patients are," he said. "What worries us is people are unaware of this, people are taking risk, they are going into crowded settings but they have no idea how bad this thing is getting."
The age of people with active cases in Ontario now heavily leans to those under 60, the highest group, people 20 to 29, with variants driving more than half the growth.
Donnie Garchitorena, 33, is on oxygen at Humber River Hospital in Toronto.
The forklift operator said his family doctor was frightened about his condition and told him to get to the nearest hospital on Wednesday. He said took precautions and always wore a mask.
"I feel upset. How did I get this kind of COVID-19? I have no idea where,” Garchitorena told CTV News Toronto from his hospital room.
Dr. Lawrence Loh, Peel Region’s Medical Officer of Health, said he knows people are tired of COVID-19, but cases are still coming from workplaces, households and more recently clusters from social gatherings.
"If you do get infected covid, no matter how old you are, you don’t know how you'’re body is going to react, how your immune system is going to fight the disease and the infection that can lead to some of the more concerning and severe outcomes," said Loh.
Some doctors are pleading, for people to keep up with precautions, stay outside as much as possible, and hang on a little longer.
