2) In its weekly report, the Public Health Agency of Canada observed that the "highest cumulative hospitalization rates are among children under 5 years of age (41/100,000 population)." That's up from a rate of 26 per 100,000 population for this age group only a week earlier.

3) Last week's FluWatch report noted that from Aug. 28 to Nov. 19, there were 482 pediatric influenza-associated hospitalizations and 58 ICU admissions in Canada. But as of Nov. 26, the cumulative total has surged to 707 such hospitalizations and 95 ICU admissions. See below.

4) Fortunately, pediatric flu deaths have remained under 5 so far across Canada. But obviously one child dying from the flu is one too many. On Nov. 17, Alberta's health minister confirmed a 4-year-old's death. Alberta's flu activity is now widespread.

https://twitter.com/JasonCoppingAB/status/1593447772233302016

5) Of course, it's not just the flu that's sending children to hospitals, but Respiratory Syncytial Virus and #COVID, too. In fact, as of Dec. 1, 13 children under the age of 10 were hospitalized in Quebec with and for COVID during the latest #pandemic resurgence in the province.

6) And late on Friday night, Quebec's largest pediatric hospital, Sainte-Justine, was filled to 138 per cent capacity, as you can glimpse from the chart below. Similar nightmarish scenarios are occurring in children's ERs across Canada.

7) School absenteeism in Quebec has skyrocketed to record highs above 158,000 amid what some observers are now calling a "multi-demic" that involves not only #COVID, but RSV, the flu and other viruses. Please see the chart below.

8) And yet politicians across Canada do not seem to grasp the enormity of this health crisis involving innocent children. Confoundingly — in Alberta, where flu activity is now the most severe — the government has banned mask mandates in schools.

9) Quebec, for its part, is in the midst of an 8th or 9th #COVID wave (depending on how you assess these things). Pandemic hospitalizations are now surging in the U.S. It may only be a matter of time before the same thing happens across Canada, and children will be affected, too.

10) Years from now, when historians look back on this period, how will they view the way our society, our leaders and our politicians, treated children during this multi-demic — when the science was staring them straight in the face? My guess is historians won't be kind. The End.