The Public Record | Hamilton's Civic Affairs News Site (https://thepublicrecord.ca/topics/covid-19/)
Dr. Richardson expects the need for more permanent staff “as COVID-19 transitions to an endemic state”. Presently, key staff are leaving for permanent positions elsewhere, and Hamilton needs to retain them.
“I’m quite certain we’re gonna move into Grey and we’ll be in Grey for a number of weeks”, says Dr Doug Sider, a communicable disease specialist with Hamilton Public Health.
Hamilton’s curve is going down as daily case counts decrease and the reproductive number is finally back below 1.
Hamilton’s daily new case number for today is 171, and hospitalizations continue to increase. Without full contact tracing, we do not know exactly where or how COVID is spreading in our community. During the past ten days, Hamilton Public Health says nearly 50% of cases are from close contact transmission. 28% of cases are “community acquired” meaning unknown origin, 16% are outbreak associated. The City is expecting to complete the first round of vaccinations in long-term care homes and higher risk retirement homes by Sunday.
Ontario is doing poorly at containing COVID, but in this context, Hamilton is managing better than other nearby regions.
Hamilton General Hospital is over-capacity in its ICU as the region facing a surge in COVID hospitalizations
The Weekly Incidence Rate is decreasing, but last week’s peak is next week’s hospitalizations.
All the indicators are trending in the wrong directions as hospitals prepare for even more patients while trying to manage internal outbreaks and save lives in long-term care homes.
Hamilton continues to see daily records for active cases and grow in daily new case count averages.
Hamilton’s weekly incidence rate reaches a new peak as 151 cases reported and 6 additional deaths means Hamilton has more deaths since December 1st than the nine months prior.
Hamilton’s weekly incidence rate remains above 150 as 94 new cases are reported on a day of province-wide low testing numbers and a near record high provincial positivity rate.