But clinicians say it's not only the number of patients posing a challenge for ICUs — it's how long they're typically staying. While average patients spend just a few days in intensive care, COVID-19 patients often need resource-heavy critical care for a week or more, multiple experts told CBC News. Right now, 254 patients are in Ontario ICUs, with 188 of those requiring ventilators to help them breathe, the latest provincial data shows. That's in contrast to the typical three-day average stay for ICU patients, according to the Canadian Institute of Health Information. Dr. Hannah Wunsch, a professor of anesthesia and critical care medicine at the University of Toronto, says longer-than-average stays for Ontario COVID-19 sufferers echo early research from abroad.

Source: CBC News April 16, 2020 09:00 UTC