‘This surge may be prolonged’: How BA.2 variant will affect Hamilton over the next 3 months
Published April 4, 2022 at 9:04 pm
Relaxed COVID-19 safety measures and spread of the BA.2 variant might add up to Hamilton facing a “prolonged” resurgence in COVID-19 hospitalizations this spring, the public health unit says.
Doctors from Hamilton Public Health Services (HPHS) presented forecasting to city councillors during a Board of Health meeting on Monday (April 4). By almost all indications, residents of Hamilton and the city’s healthcare workers face what HPHS calls a “resurgence scenario.”
The surge is not expected to reach the level of the Omicron wave that afflicted the city in December, January and February. However, it will entail about 400 new hospital admissions between Monday and June 30 — roughly 4.5 per day, with about 6 at peak volume. The forecasting also foresees 44 new intensive care unit admissions — slightly above peak Omicron levels — and 16 deaths. An earlier arrival of the surge will also prolong it on the back end, because of exponential growth.
The updated projections came exactly two weeks after the province lifted COVID-19 safety measures in most public indoor settings, including schools. Hamilton’s elected leadership lifted the city’s masking and physical distancing bylaws that same day.
“Unfortunately… it’s clearer to us now that transmission has increased and we are now more fully down the path of resurgence,” Dr. Ruth Sanderson, an HPHS epidemiologist, told city councillors.
“With the removal of mandate for protective measures, infections are forecast to increase in the short term,” Sanderson added. “Now, with the increase of BA.2, these higher levels will likely be sustained for a longer period than previously indicated and may last out beyond the end of June.”
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Of late, Hamilton has been averaging 2.7 new hospital admissions with COVID-19 per day. Sanderson said that could double to about 6.0 per day this spring. She noted that a resurgence was always anticipated, but that the easing of mandates pushed its arrival ahead by a few weeks.
“We might expect the peak to happen earlier, in mid-April, and create more cases overall,” Sanderson said. “We will be able to see this more clearly in the next couple weeks.”
The BA2.variant is also 1.3 to 1.5 times more transmissible than the Omicron subvariant of COVID-19. The public health unit says its modelling also now builds in that BA.2 accounts for 45 per cent of cases in Hamilton, and many individuals’ immunity from the virus is waning.
That factored in HPHS advising that the spring surge may be “prolonged.”
Projected hospital admissions with COVID-19 over the next three months in Hamilton. (City of Hamilton/Hamilton Public Health Services)
Sanderson encouraged people to stay up to date if they are eligible for another dose. Another over age 12 can get a third dose.
“It will continue to be important to stay up to date on COVID-19 vaccination,” she said.
It is still early in the game in terms of medical science understanding COVID-19 and its variants. But one study has suggested that with Omicron, triple-vaxxed individuals had 60 per cent protection than the double-dosed.
About 57 per cent of adults in Hamilton have had three or more doses, with higher rates of triple-vax uptake in older age groups. The youngest demographic where fewer than half of Hamiltonians have had a third jab is 40- to 44-year-olds, at 49.28 per cent.
“As we have said many times, COVID-19 is not going away,” Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Elizabeth Richardson said. “It is all about how we learning to live with and manage COVID-19 in this phase of the pandemic that we are waiting to see play out.”
‘We see both increasing’
Hamilton residents, by the numbers, are concerned about having COVID-19. About 306 people had a PCR test in the city’s assessment centres over the last seven days.
A fellow epidemiologist, Dr. Erin Rodenburg, also explained that the test positivity has increased simultaneously with an increase in the number of people who are being tested.
“When we see both increasing, we have good confidence that is reflecting increased transmission in our community,” Rodenburg said.
Rodenburg added that analysis of wastewater data — which was only added to the city COVID-19 dashboard three weeks ago — also points toward increased activity. The wastewater signal, as of the last samples taken on March 27, was at roughly the same level that it was in mid-January during the Omicron wave.
“Our wastewater data is also seeing those increases that we are seeing in cases, in test positivity and in hospitalizations,” Rodenburg said. “When we see those consistent increases in all of these indicators, we can confirm that we are seeing increased transmission in our community.”
Hamilton also has 15 active COVID-19 outbreaks, Six of those are long-term care homes and retirement homes.
At one point recently, though, the city was down to just five outbreaks.
The entire meeting is viewable on YouTube.
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