Hamilton to remain under stay-at-home order
Restriction expected to be lifted Feb. 16 as city reports 30 new COVID cases and other key metrics continue to drop
Hamilton is remaining under a stay-at-home order despite new daily COVID-19 cases dropping to the lowest number reported in around two months.
“We’re maintaining shutdown measures in the majority of the public health regions in Ontario for a short time,” Premier Doug Ford said Monday.
It will be at least Feb. 16 before the stay-at-home order ends in Hamilton and most of Ontario.
“I would expect that to happen for sure,” Dr. Dominik Mertz, associate professor in the division of infectious diseases at McMaster University, said about lifting the order here in one week.
But it’s hard to predict what restrictions will still be in place at that time.
The city was in grey lockdown before the stay-at-home order and Mertz says it’s possible Hamilton will be put there again.
Lockdown would be similar to now except limited in-person shopping at non-essential businesses is now allowed in grey.
Red is another likelihood, which is the zone Hamilton was in from Nov. 16 to when lockdown started Dec. 21.
“I’d expect we’d be somewhere between red and grey in the framework,” said Dr. Zain Chagla, comedical director of infection
control at St. Joseph’s Healthcare. “I think we will open up.”
The city reported 30 new infections Monday — the lowest since around Dec. 11 except for one day last week that was artificially down due to a delay in lab reporting.
“We’re seeing some sunlight break through the cloud,” Ford said, while noting decreases across the province.
“But ... we’re not clear of this storm yet,” he said. “Hospital ICUs in some parts of the province are still under immense pressure, we’re getting hit with new variants of COVID-19 and there are significant delays in getting our vaccine supply ... We can’t return to normal, not yet.”
The number of COVID patients hospitalized in Hamilton has dropped to 72 from more than 110 in January. But it’s still significantly higher than the first wave when 150 patients total were hospitalized in the first four months of the pandemic.
The city’s intensive care units have consistently been identified as being under pressure in provincial projection briefings.
Hospital and public health capacity are both factors in determining what restrictions are needed.
Hamilton has not yet had any cases of the three fast-spreading variants that have been found in Ontario despite the province now screening all positive tests, although B.1.1.7 — or the U.K. variant — has been detected in Haldimand-Norfolk.
“I want to caution that while we have seen some progress, the risk remains high,” said Health Minister Christine Elliott. “COVID-19 variants are now spreading in Ontario and remain a significant threat.”
As a result, the province has put in an “emergency brake” that would allow an area to be put immediately into lockdown if cases start spiking.
“I have some optimism, but we will likely have to watch the numbers super closely in the coming few weeks,” said Chagla. “I am glad the province also included an emergency brake mechanism to reverse course quickly if things are looking worse.”
Hamilton’s reproduction number is down to 0.78, which puts the city in the least-restrictive green zone. When the number is above 1.0, it raises the possibility of exponential growth, so with it being below this threshold, there’s hope Hamilton’s other numbers will continue to fall.
But, for now, the other key metrics are solidly in red — there are no specific numbers for lockdown.
The weekly rate of new cases per 100,000 population is 66 — red is 40.
The per cent of tests coming back positive for COVID is 2.8 per cent — red is 2.5 per cent.
Outbreaks are also an ongoing issue in Hamilton and factor into the decision.
While the number of outbreaks is close to half of what it was two weeks ago, it’s still high at 27 and spread across multiple sectors.
A number of the outbreaks are also large, including long-termcare homes The Meadows, which has 51 cases, and Macassa Lodge, which has 50.
The temporary hospital at 150 King St. E. in Effort Square has 87 infections between three floors, while Juravinski Hospital has 41 cases on unit E2.
There is a large workplace outbreak at Canada Bread at 745 Nebo Rd. that is now up to 45 infections.
A new outbreak was declared Feb. 7 at daycare Imagineer’s Early Learning Centre on West 5th Street where two staff have tested positive.
The outbreak at Maxwell's Retirement Home at 274 Bay St. S. was declared over Feb. 7 after 19 were infected and one died since Jan. 17.
An outbreak at Community Living Hamilton is also over.
The province has already said some regions will move into the least-restrictive green zone on Feb. 10, including Hastings Prince Edward Public Health, Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington Public Health and Renfrew County and District Health Unit.
Toronto, Peel and York will remain under the stay-at-home order until at least Feb. 22.
“I agree with the regional approach and moving forward with caution and a gradual transition,” said Dr. Mark Loeb, the Michael G. DeGroote Chair in Infectious Diseases at McMaster. “This is particularly important given the presence of new variants.”