Hamilton has first case of fast-spreading COVID variant

A fast-spreading COVID variant has been detected in Hamilton just one day after the province lifted the stay-at-home order.

A confirmed case of the U.K. variant B.1.1.7 was reported by public health Wednesday on the heels of Hamilton moving into the red zone of the province's COVID-19 framework Tuesday.

A COVID-19 variant is something that all members of the community should take seriously," Dr. Elizabeth Richardson, Hamilton's medical officer of health, said in a statement Wednesday. It's vital that as places in the community begin to open up that we don't start to let our guard down."

B.1.1.7 is estimated to be 50 per cent more transmissible and potentially more lethal, which has created apprehension about the province lifting the stay-at-home order - including Richardson expressing concern.

Ontario's main defence is the emergency brake" that would put an area immediately into lockdown if cases start spiking. But it has no set trigger, raising questions about whether it will be implemented fast enough.

The specifics of this are still being worked out," Richardson said at a city briefing Tuesday.

The province's public health measures table has been asked to give more specific advice on triggers," said Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Ontario's associate chief medical officer of health.

I would say one of the big ones are the percentage of cases that are the variants of concern," she said. If we're starting to see an increase ... we would be discussing it immediately as an emergency with the local medical officer of health and determining what the appropriate measures would be."

Hamilton public health refused to provide any information Wednesday about whether the case is linked to travel or if there is evidence of community spread of B.1.1.7.

Instead, residents - including those who have been vaccinated already - continue to get the mixed message of staying home as the city starts to reopen.

Please continue to follow public health measures, continue to stay home as much as possible, don't gather, and continue to protect one another from this virus," Richardson said in the statement. Hamilton Public Health Services is prepared for this and has implemented a number of enhanced measures."

Any suspicion of exposure to COVID will now be designated as close contact and require a 14-day quarantine, which is a significant change. Household members will also be asked to quarantine.

The revised management includes an increased sensitivity" to identifying and designating close contacts and getting them tested.

Contacts will be tested again around Day 10 of their 14-day quarantine period, regardless of whether they are symptomatic.

If a close contact of a positive case develops symptoms, all of their close contacts will be directed to quarantine until the test result is known.

Provincial projections have warned there is little room for error in our response to this threat."

If the B.1.1.7 variant behaves as it did in the United Kingdom, cases will start to grow here again in late February and early March," Adalsteinn (Steini) Brown, dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, said Feb. 11. The U.K. example is important - in a matter of months, the B.1.1.7 variant went from detection to the dominant strain. As it became the dominant strain, cases more than tripled in a month. At the same time, their health-care system strained ... and there were daily deaths regularly in excess of 1,000 people."

The province has identified 319 cases of the fast-spreading variants as of Tuesday - 309 of them B.1.1.7. One case has previously been detected in Haldimand-Norfolk.

There is no obvious pattern at this point," said Yaffe. If there does start to be a pattern, that would be a big concern."

All positive COVID tests in Ontario are now being screened as of Feb. 3, with about seven per cent being one of the three fast-spreading variants.

We're going to keep a very close handle on this, and if we do start to see any concerns, we are able to go back and have the stay-at-home order and put in more measures," said Yaffe.

The same public health measures work on B.1.1.7 and public health says there is no evidence the current vaccines being used in Canada are any less effective.

The detection of B.1.1.7 in Hamilton comes as public health is starting to use an app called Virtual Assistant that sends text messages to those who test positive for COVID and to close contacts.

This tool will enable Hamilton Public Health Services to increase the speed and capacity for contact tracing and case management," the department said in a statement. The process ... will help us to quickly identify the contacts of cases and get in touch with them quickly to reduce the further potential spread of COVID-19."

The text gives a secure link to a form where information can be voluntarily provided. The contact tracer will review it before calling.

Cases and close contacts are still followed up with a case investigator in person."

Joanna Frketich is a Hamilton-based reporter covering health for The Spectator. Reach her via email: jfrketich@thespec.com