Hamilton public health ‘overwhelmed,’ no longer managing outbreaks at workplaces or community settings
Effective immediately, Hamilton public health will no longer be declaring new outbreaks associated with workplaces or community settings.
Instead, staff will focus their efforts on investigating outbreaks in high-risk settings including hospitals, long-term care homes, retirement homes, shelters, supportive housing, correctional institutions, child care centres and schools.
The announcement came the same day as Hamilton hit an all-time high for COVID cases at 268 on Thursday. Ontario also hit a record high at 5,790 new cases. Both were the highest case counts seen since April.
The emergence of the highly-transmissible Omicron variant has led to a large surge in the number of community members testing positive for COVID-19 in Hamilton which has overwhelmed Hamilton Public Health Services' ability to provide outbreak management in all settings," read a late Thursday release from public health.
Public health says the higher risk settings will continue to be provided with infection prevention and control guidance by Hamilton Public Health Services staff and declared outbreaks will be published on the City of Hamilton's Status of Cases dashboard."
The health unit is asking businesses, organizations and individuals keep taking steps to slow COVID-19 transmission.
Hamilton Public Health Services strongly recommends local workplaces, sports teams and other non-high-risk community settings with five or more confirmed cases of COVID-19 consider discontinuing operations for a period of 10 days to break transmission in the setting," reads the release.
This difficult, but necessary action, will help reduce the spread of the highly-transmissible Omicron variant of concern, and protect strained local health care capacity and Hamilton's most vulnerable."
The release notes Hamilton's weekly incidence rate of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 in Hamilton has more than doubled since December 15, 2021 and currently stands at 194 - a rate not seen since the pandemic's third wave in April 2021."
Katrina Clarke is a reporter at The Spectator. katrinaclarke@thespec.com