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CPAPs are non-invasive measures for people still able to breath on their own. In the COVID-19 era, they are also potential sources of contamination, ruling them out as treatment options. That person having trouble breathing, who isn’t responding to simple oxygen, has but one hope: Being put on life support in a medically induced coma.

“It is a difficult situation for the family, and it is certainly not what we would like to do,” Levy says. “Any time you get to the point of life support with a patient, there is a certain amount of risk involved.”

Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post

There is also a certain amount of risk involved in being a doctor in a dangerous time. Dozens of physicians worldwide have succumbed to the virus. Levy isn’t old, but he isn’t 40 anymore. He is 61. He and his wife, Angela, have been married for 38 years. They have two children, and plenty of money in the bank.

Levy does not need to be working an overnight shift to make ends meet, or even working — period. But retirement would not be a good fit. Levy studies medicine for fun. He also watches football and plays with flight simulator games. To decompress after a shift, he cranks oldies on the car radio. He is still an electronics geek.

As dissimilar as his two careers may seem — saving lives vs. selling stuff — there are a few commonalities. Back when Levy was running RadioShack, he had a message he conveyed to the troops.

“I used to say, “You got to bring your A-game to work every day, and your A-game always has to be a little bit better than it was the day before,” he says.

Levy has been bringing his A-game to Brampton Civic for a decade now. Amid a frightening time fraught with uncertainty, with every indication things are about to get worse, there is no place he would rather be.

“I probably told my wife ten thousand times that I wanted to be a doctor before I became a doctor,” he says. “I am just one of those people who was very fortunate, where things worked out, and where I could do not just one thing I really enjoyed in life, but two.”