COVID deaths in the region are rising, now higher in number than recorded during the earlier waves of the pandemic.
The Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit reported 63 COVID-related deaths in January, with about eight deaths per week on average.
In January 2021, the alpha strain devastated long-term care homes causing 89 deaths that month, during a time when vaccinations were starting to arrive but there were widespread shortages.
An outbreak at Roberta Place long-term care home in Barrie from Jan. 8 to Feb. 18, 2021 claimed 71 lives. The outbreak hit before vaccines were delivered to the residents of the home.
Of the last 23 deaths in the region, 20 have been seniors over 74 years old.
Some of the deaths are occurring in long-term care homes in outbreak, but they’ve been spread across many homes, with between one and four deaths at more than a dozen long-term care/retirement home and hospitals.
Widespread seems to be the operative term defining the Omicron wave both in the region and the province.
“Omicron on a case-by-case basis is less severe, but because it is so much more transmissible, it is infecting more people and finding vulnerable people,” said Dr. Charles Gardner, medical officer of health for the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit.
The weekly hospitalization rate is the highest ever at 23 new hospitalizations on a weekly basis. But the rate of hospitalizations compared to the number of cases is about a quarter of what t was during waves three and four.
The health unit reported about four per cent of all cases between February and December 2021 required hospitalization and one per cent were admitted to an ICU. Since Omicron arrived in December 2021, about one per cent of reported cases have required hospitalization and 0.1 per cent of reported cases required admission to an ICU.
Reduced testing has also meant an underestimation of the number of cases in the community since most of the general public can no longer get a publicly-funded PCR test.
The return of COVID to long-term care homes, according to Gardner, is not the result of any failings on their part to keep control measures in place.
“To me, the explanation lies in the nature of Omicron itself, with high transmission happening in the community, which is a major driver in transmission in these facilities,” said Gardner during a Feb. 2 media briefing.
The health unit is working to provide fourth doses of COVID vaccines to residents at long-term care and retirement homes.
“Vaccination coverage remains very, very important,” said Gardner, referencing the protection realized with little transmission in long-term care facilities in the region during the Delta wave.
To reduce community spread and protect against severe COVID outside of long-term care homes, Garder said he’d like to see third-dose vaccination coverage increase to “as high as possible.”
“Without the vaccines, we would be in a much more dire situation with the Omicron variant,” said Gardner. “We know protective measures reduce risk. Reducing transmission saves lives, and helps avoid overwhelming the healthcare system.”
Over the last seven days, about 26 per cent of the region’s confirmed COVID cases were unvaccinated people. About 22 per cent of the population (including children under five years old) is unvaccinated, and 18 per cent of the population over four years old is unvaccinated.
There is a higher rate of unvaccinated population requiring hospitalization and intensive care. An average of about eight unvaccinated people per 100,000 people of all ages being hospitalized in a week and two unvaccinated people per 100,000 people over 11 years old requiring admission to an intensive care unit for COVID-19.
The same dataset shows 1.4 fully vaccinated people per 100,000 people of all ages hospitalized for COVID-19 in a week, and 0.2 fully vaccinated people per 100,000 people over 11 years old requiring admission to an intensive care unit.
Between July 18 and Feb. 1, the rate of COVID hospitalizations among the unvaccinated population within the eligible age range is six times higher than for those in the same age groups who have received at least two doses.
ICU admissions are 12 times higher and the rate of death is four times higher for unvaccinated people compared to fully-vaccinated people, based on regional data reported by the health unit.
