City’s surge in COVID cases has public health urging vigilance in virus fight

A small but persistent surge in new COVID-19 cases has Hamilton's public health unit urging people to remain vigilant in the fight against the coronavirus.

The city registered 16 new COVID cases over the weekend, bringing the total number of cases to 947, including 46 active cases.

After seeing the daily case average drop to one or two last month, the average has climbed back to four or five a day since just after the August holiday weekend.

We're definitely keeping an eye on it," said Dr. Ninh Tran, Hamilton's associate medical officer of health. The virus is still here."

Tran said the recent jump in cases isn't surprising for three reasons - more retail and dining establishments have reopened, more social gathering has been permitted, and there's a fatigue setting in with people after nearly five months of virus-fighting health protocols.

It's important to reiterate that we don't forget and become too lax on the measures," said Tran. That means physical distancing and hand hygiene, wearing a mask or face covering when you're out, staying home when you're sick.

If you're not going to practise physical distancing, then it's important that you stay within the social bubble of 10," he added. I think we're starting to see people maybe bend that rule a little bit in being part of more than one social bubble."

The expansion of retail, restaurant and social opportunities has made contact tracing of new cases more difficult, Tran said.

You asked people before where they were when they were symptomatic or the 48 hours before that and the answer would be I was at home and I went to this grocery store,'" Tran said.

Now we're getting people saying I went here and I went there and I went to my friend's and this restaurant,'" he said. If people are going to be out and about more, it becomes even more important to keep up with those public-health measures."

There are positives worth noting.

The city's COVID rate by population of 176 cases per 100,000 people is well below the Ontario rate of 278 cases per 100,000. Hamilton's rate is also about half the Canadian rate.

Hamilton's death rate from COVID of 8.4 per 100,000 people is less than half of Ontario's rate of 19.1 per 100,000.

There have been 45 COVID deaths in Hamilton, with none since July 25.

There are also no institutional outbreaks at the moment and none of the cases reported in the last 10 days have been among people ages 80 and older, who are the most vulnerable to serious health consequences from the virus.

That's likely the result of greater attention focused on reducing COVID outbreaks in the city's long-term care facilities, Tran said.

About a third of the city's cases in the last 10 days have been people 19 years of age and younger, while another 26 per cent have been among people ages 20 to 39.

If you want percentages to be higher somewhere, you'd want it to be in the younger, healthier group," said Tran.

Just 146 of Hamilton's 947 cases have required hospitalization.

St. Joseph's Healthcare reports two patients currently hospitalized with COVID and Hamilton Health Sciences reports less than six patients. HHS won't provide exact numbers below six for privacy reasons.

Ontario reported 99 new COVID cases Monday and no new deaths. There are currently about 3,700 active cases in the province.

Steve Buist is a Hamilton-based investigative reporter at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sbuist@thespec.com