Sealing off hot and cold areas is difficult. What is unfortunate about all this is that strategies change as community transmission evolves. In a situation like the one discussed today, where community transmission is very high, it becomes increasingly difficult to get “cold” patients. All patients will be more likely to have COVID-19 and become “warm”. As a result, it becomes extremely difficult to have separate areas because there is a lack of space.
From the beginning, it would have been nice to have a hospital for positive patients and a hospital for negative patients to ensure continuity of care. We decided to cut it in the middle and that has its limits.
I hope that at least in rural areas that have not been affected but may have cases of COVID-19 eventually, there will still be time to follow these hot and cold zone procedures. This was done for the intensive care unit in Montreal, but we have realized that it is extremely difficult to comply with all of this. That's why there have been eight micro outbreaks in eight teaching hospitals in the greater Montreal area.