COVID patients sent to Hamilton and Burlington from other parts of Ontario
Area hospitals are caring for 15 critical-care COVID patients sent from overburdened hospitals in other parts of Ontario.
The unprecedented transfers went to Hamilton Health Sciences, St. Joseph's Healthcare, Burlington's Joseph Brant Hospital and Niagara Health. It is unknown how many patients each hospital received or where they came from.
Eight new COVID outbreaks were made public Wednesday as the deadliest at Grace Villa came to an end.
Our outbreak numbers continue to rise," Hamilton's medical officer of health, Dr. Elizabeth Richardson, said Monday.
The city reported 66 cases Wednesday - the second day in a row new infections has been in the double-digits and a far cry from the record 209 on Jan. 5.
It is by no means yet a reason to celebrate or ... think that we should change our course," said Richardson. We want to see trends over a longer period of time."
Hamilton reported three deaths Wednesday to bring the pandemic toll to 227. Two appear to be age 80 or more while one was age 70 to 79.
One death appeared to be at the outbreak at the Meadows long-term-care home in Ancaster, where 45 have been infected and six have died. Another seems to be at the outbreak on unit E3 at Juravinski Hospital, where 25 have been infected and four have died. The third death doesn't appear to be connected to any outbreak.
A key metric - the weekly rate of new cases per 100,000 - dropped to 109 on Wednesday from 115 on Tuesday. It was 149.3 from Jan. 4 to 10.
But it's still a long way off the 48.1 the city was at from Nov. 1 to 7, just before Hamilton was put in the red zone. It was 116 when the city went into lockdown Dec. 21.
Hamilton is still seeing high numbers of COVID patients hospitalized with 91 at Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) on Wednesday and 21 at St. Joseph's Healthcare, including 11 in the intensive-care unit. To compare, fewer than 150 were hospitalized in the first four months of the pandemic.
St. Joseph's has sent patients to the field hospital at Joseph Brant, but won't say how many. The Burlington hospital will only say that it is caring for six patients or less at the temporary hospital meant for those who are stable.
The Toronto Star reported Sunday that the critical-care patients sent to Burlington were from Mackenzie Richmond Hill Hospital.
The capacity of the health-care system is approaching a breaking point of being overwhelmed," Six Nations said in a statement to the community on Wednesday, as it reported eight new cases in the last seven days.
HHS has six ongoing outbreaks, while St. Joseph's has four, including one declared Jan. 19 on the 6 Surgical Unit at the Charlton Campus and another declared Jan. 20 on Level 5 Mary Grace Wing.
The two new outbreaks were among eight made public Wednesday that were declared Jan. 18 to Jan 20, bringing the total to 44 which matches Monday's all-time high.
Three new outbreaks were in seniors' homes after one staff tested positive at Kingsberry Place Seniors Residence on Limeridge Road East, the Carlisle Retirement Residence on Main Street East and Chartwell Willowgrove in Ancaster. Chartwell was home to a large outbreak that saw 101 infections and 19 deaths from Oct. 22 to Dec. 31.
One new workplace outbreak was declared among two staff at Active Green and Ross Complete Tire and Automotive Centre at Limeridge Mall.
Two of the outbreaks are at Hamilton Downtown Family YMCA and Rygiel Supports for Community Living in west Hamilton, where one resident has tested positive at each community organization.
Hamilton's largest and deadliest pandemic outbreak at Grace Villa long-term-care home on the east Mountain was declared over Monday after 44 deaths and 234 infections since Nov. 25.
Outbreaks are also over at Aberdeen Gardens Retirement Residence, Village Manor retirement home and Janco Steel Ltd.
Hamilton's ongoing outbreaks include eight community outbreaks, five workplaces, three daycares and 28 institutional, which includes 18 seniors' homes.
One is a fast-spreading outbreak at Victoria Manor I that doubled overnight to 20 infections at the residential-care facility on Victoria Avenue South.
Active cases are at 783, which Richardson says is now accurate as public health has nearly caught up on a significant backlog. Only 22 cases remain under investigation compared to 458 just over two weeks ago.
However, there are still 210 cases unaccounted for as public health has not been able to reach them to confirm they have recovered after 14 days.
We have tried to followup many times in various ways to ensure that they are resolved,'" public health said in a statement. In other municipalities, they do put these in the resolved' column since it's past the 14 days. We don't feel that it would be an accurate representation of the numbers in each category if we did it that way."
Joanna Frketich is a Hamilton-based reporter covering health for The Spectator. Reach her via email: jfrketich@thespec.com