New data shows COVID-19’s grim hold on Hamilton

Hamilton public health revealed just how dramatically the city's COVID landscape has changed in recent months at Monday's board of health meeting.

In a presentation to city councillors, public health epidemiologist Stephanie Hughes shared a comparison of what COVID metrics - new cases, outbreaks, hospitalizations and deaths - looked like in September versus November versus December. Steep increases were documented in each category each month.

Just how hard is COVID hitting Hamilton?

At the beginning of September, public health was seeing was an average of one new COVID case a day. By the end of last week, that number was 67.

Hughes said in Phase 1: Pre-Peak," which included the month of September, there were 179 total new cases of COVID, two outbreaks, six people hospitalized and one death. Fast forward one month and in Phase 3: Peaks 2+," which included the month of November through to Dec. 4, those statistics jumped to 1,545 new COVID cases, 44 outbreaks, 74 people hospitalized and 46 deaths.

Another grim statistic: nearly half of all COVID deaths recorded since the pandemic began - 46 of 101 - occurred last month.

Outbreak activity continued to rise (throughout November)," Hughes told councillors. As a result of this, there was also a rise in the severity of cases."

Recent deadly outbreaks include Chartwell Willowgrove long-term care home in Ancaster, which has 91 cases and 17 deaths; Hamilton Continuing Care long-term care home in central Hamilton, which has 53 cases and eight deaths; and Grace Villa long-term care home on the Mountain which has 87 cases and nine deaths.

Hamilton is now sitting at the high end of red," the city's medical officer of health said Monday.

That should put us closer to a lockdown phase, but the thresholds to move into new zones are qualitative" - hard to nail down, Dr. Elizabeth Richardson said. Such zone-shifting decisions are made by the province, she added.

Despite speculation last week that the city was headed for a feared lockdown, Hamilton remains in red.

Hughes also presented an age breakdown of COVID cases which showcased the see-saw effect experts warned was coming.

Whereas in September and October, the highest percentage of all cases was in people aged 20 to 29 - accounting for about one in four cases at the time - numbers dropped off in November and early December. In their place, cases in people aged 70-plus - which accounted for just around five per cent of all cases in September and October - shot up in November and early December. Now, they make up around one in five cases.

Public health also a setting-by-setting breakdown of where COVID outbreaks emerged from.

A total of 23 per cent of outbreaks in the past three months were from workplaces, 20 per cent were in long-term care homes, 10 per cent came from other," retirement homes and schools accounted for eight per cent of outbreaks, emergency housing facilities accounted for three per cent and hospitals accounted for one per cent.

But long-term care homes far outstripped other outbreak settings when it came to case numbers.

Of all 599 cases tied to outbreaks, 359 - or 60 per cent - were in long-term care homes.

Katrina Clarke is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach her via email: katrinaclarke@thespec.com