Despite surge in COVID-19 cases, hospital capacity remains stable in Brampton

While COVID-19 cases continue to increase, including cases of the new, Omicron variant, hospital capacity in Brampton remains stable according to Mayor Patrick Brown and Dr. Lawrence Loh, Medical Officer of Health for the Region of Peel.

“There’s a lot of attention being paid to Omicron in the news right now, but I feel it’s important to focus on the severity and not the general case counts,” Brown said during a press conference on Wednesday (December 15).

“The number that I look at every week is our hospital capacity, and they continue to remain stable,” he said.

Dr. Loh confirmed that Brampton’s hospital capacity is not currently overwhelmed by the rising cases, and he added that Peel Public Health (PPH) is monitoring the situation closely.

“At this point in time, our case rate is 30 per 100,000 with a test positivity of 3 per cent. Those metrics are good right now,” he said during the same press conference. “At this point in time, we are seeing slight increases but remaining stable.”

However, Dr. Loh did emphasize the fact that, should the rising case numbers begin to adversely affect hospital capacity, PPH will not hesitate to take necessary action.

“But we are ever vigilant, and should we see increases being driven in our community, we will not hesitate to take measures to protect our community,” he said. “We continue to monitor things here and in the rest of Ontario.”