Hamilton has Ontario’s highest COVID rate

Hamilton has Ontario's highest COVID rate at the same time it also has among the lowest vaccine coverage.

The city's rising case counts come at the same time Ontario's chief medical officer of health said COVID restrictions will soon be regional instead of provincewide.

Within Hamilton itself, there are vast divides, such as one Stoney Creek Mountain neighbourhood - with L8J postal codes - having among the highest test positivity in the province while also having one of the city's lowest vaccination rates.

I believe we are in the fourth wave," said Ahmed Al-Jaishi, an epidemiologist with Ontario research institute ICES Western. I think the fourth wave has already started. This is it."

Hamilton came out on top in analysis done by Al-Jaishi that shows the city had 235 cases per million population in the last week - significantly higher" than other parts of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), such as Toronto at 143, Peel at 134 and Halton at 98.

The trends are going in the wrong directions and the cases are high even in comparison to the rest of the province," said Al-Jaishi The cases are increasing so that is a little bit worrisome."

Hamilton's cases went up by 19 per cent in the last week, shows Al-Jaishi's analysis. It's a slower pace than many other public health units - some increased by 100 to 200 per cent.

But Hamilton is on top partly because case counts never went back to where they were last summer.

The lowest Hamilton got to was a weekly rate per 100,000 population of 11 in mid-July compared to two at the same time last year.

Now the rate is up to 29 as of Aug. 8, when it was still two on this day in 2020.

We never got as low as many other public health units all July," said Dr. Dominik Mertz, associate professor in the division of infectious diseases at McMaster University. We had a significant drop but we never dropped to the bottom end where we had been last year in July. Now, with many public health units picking up in terms of case numbers, we started higher up already."

At the same time, Hamilton also has among the lowest vaccine coverage.

Data reported by The Toronto Star shows Hamilton had the fourth-lowest vaccine rate in the province Tuesday, behind health units Porcupine and Hastings and Prince Edward Counties.

Haldimand and Norfolk had the worst rate with 74 per cent of those eligible having a first shot and 66 per cent with two doses.

In comparison, Hamilton was at 77 per cent of those age 12 and older with one dose and 68 per cent fully vaccinated.

The province was at 81 per cent for one shot and 72 per cent for two doses.

We've been lagging behind," said Mertz. First, because we didn't get the same access as most of the public health units in the GTA so we started off later than others did. It's probably multifactorial why some communities are more open to the vaccine and getting vaccinated quicker than us."

Halton has the second highest rates in the province with 85 per cent having one shot and 76 per cent fully vaccinated.

The best rate is Leeds, Grenville and Lanark at 90 per cent of those age 12 and older with one shot and 81 per cent with two doses.

If we fully understood what those differences are it would be easier to act on it," said Mertz. I'm not entirely sure to what extent it is an access issue - people having trouble getting vaccinated - and to what extent it's pockets of people who are hesitant or misinformed."

Both Mertz and Al-Jaishi were careful not to link the low vaccination coverage to the high COVID case rates.

It certainly doesn't help that we have lower vaccination rates but it's hard to argue that this is only because of those three to four per cent," said Mertz. There are other factors playing into that."

The province has been helping Hamilton to try to get its vaccination rates up. On Saturday and Sunday its GO-VAXX bus will be at Eastwood Park at 111 Burlington St. E. from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Eastwood Park is in one of Hamilton's areas with the lowest vaccination rates - first doses range from 57.3 per cent in some parts of the city compared to 78 per cent in others.

One area that stands out provincially is L8J - the first three characters of a postal code known as a forward sortation area (FSA). It goes from Ridge Road to roughly Highway 20 and from East Townline Road to roughly the Red Hill Valley Parkway.

ICES lists it as having the 14th-highest test positivity in the province for the week of July 25 to July 31.

The number of tests coming back positive for COVID in L8J was 5.46 per cent when long-term care residents were excluded. At that time, the province was 0.94 per cent and Hamilton was 2.0.

At the same time, L8J is in a part of the city where just 57 to 64 per cent of residents have had a first dose of vaccine.

It's unusual because it's also among the FSAs with Hamilton's highest median income. Areas with low vaccination rates are more likely to be among the city's lowest median incomes.

Pockets with high case counts and low vaccination could soon see different restrictions from the rest of the province.

The public health measures to control and limit the spread hence will not necessarily have to be provincewide," said Ontario's chief medical officer of health Dr. Kieran Moore. It really is about local control - regional limitation of spread."

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