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The intensive-care unit of the Jewish General Hospital is approaching full capacity with COVID-19 patients as the highly contagious coronavirus spreads through the city and province.

The Côte-des-Neiges hospital was treating 23 patients with the pandemic respiratory illness on Wednesday. Of that number, a dozen were in the ICU, most of them on ventilators.

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“We’re approaching our ICU capacity, but we’re not there yet,” Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg, executive director of the centre-west health authority in charge of the Jewish General, told the Montreal Gazette.

“But when we do (reach capacity), we have a plan to scale. (The ICU) was built to scale to 36 patients, and if we need to, we can call on other intensive-care beds that are in Pavilion K to go up to 53. If we need to go beyond that, we have a plan to scale beyond 53.”

“At the moment — because it changes day to day — as of right now I think we have things well in hand,” Rosenberg added. “I wouldn’t alarm anybody needlessly. I think the next 48 hours will be quite telling in terms of how many more cases are diagnosed.”