Omicron rages through Hamilton, with numbers highest they’ve been during COVID
Hamilton is breaking COVID records for the third consecutive reporting date as the city emerges from the holidays.
On Monday, public health reported a whopping 1,675 new cases as of Dec. 26 at 3 p.m. The previous report was 494 new cases as of Dec. 23. That brings active cases in the city to 2,610 - the highest they've ever been since the start of the pandemic.
Numbers were not reported over the weekend, so the latest count is over three days. Still, that averages to roughly 558 new cases per day. The weekly average of daily new cases is 374.
No new deaths were reported in Hamilton over the weekend.
Ontario reported 9,418 new cases on Monday.
With testing centres overwhelmed in Hamilton and across Ontario, actual infections are likely much higher.
Case counts in our current data reports are an underestimate of the true number of individuals with COVID-19 in Ontario," says a note on Public Health Ontario's website, advising that data be interpreted with caution.
The silver lining is recent data from abroad as well as Ontario estimate the risk of hospitalization from Omicron is about half of what it was with Delta, whether a person is vaccinated or not, according to the scientific director of Ontario's COVID-19 Science Table.
The bad news, Dr. Peter Juni says, is that Omicron is much more aggressive and moving much faster. At its worst, he said, the Delta variant doubled every two weeks. By comparison, Omicron is doubling every three to four days, he said.
Locally, COVID patients increased to 68 at Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS), compared to 42 on Dec. 24. St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton didn't update its numbers on Monday, but there were 10 COVID patients as of Dec. 24. There were eight or fewer patients in ICU across both hospitals, per the latest data. HHS doesn't specify the number of patients if there are five or fewer.
There were also 238 employees self-isolating across the two hospitals.
There were 33 active outbreaks in Hamilton on Monday, though public health said late last week that due to overwhelming case numbers, it is no longer declaring new outbreaks in workplaces or community settings. Only new outbreaks in high-risk settings such as hospitals, schools and seniors' homes will appear on the city's dashboard.
New outbreaks include four staff cases in the NICU at McMaster Children's Hospital and two patient cases in the 7S acute stroke unit at Hamilton General Hospital. Janet Lee Elementary School is also in outbreak with four staff cases. A Salvation Army Lawson Ministries group home has two staff and two resident cases.
There are also three suspected outbreaks with one resident case each. These are at Extendicare Hamilton long-term-care home, The Wellington Retirement Home and YMCA Hamilton downtown men's residence.
Haldimand-Norfolk reported 491 active cases and 38 active outbreaks, including 15 in classrooms and 14 bus-related.
Six Nations only had data as of Dec. 23, reporting 23 active cases and 128 individuals self-isolating. One person is in hospital.
-With files from Toronto StarMaria Iqbal covers aging issues for The Spectator. miqbal@thespec.com