The anatomy of a COVID-19 outbreak
Incident should serve as warning heading into Thanksgiving: Hirji
Three weeks.
That is all the time it took for the novel coronavirus to infect 21 people across 12 Niagara households.
Linked by a funeral, a sports event, three workplaces and the proximity of some houses, the cases that made up a summer COVID-19 outbreak demonstrate how easily the virus can hop from person to person and place to place.
“It is an illustration of why we are saying for this long weekend when there may be a lot of gatherings, that people keep those gatherings small, limited to their households,” said Niagara’s acting medical officer of health, Dr. Mustafa Hirji.
“The virus can really move around quickly.”
Thursday night, Niagara’s public health department published a map showing how the summer outbreak happened, and how infections rapidly sprawled.
Hirji would not identify the exact date or location where the outbreak began, other than to say it was weeks ago in the late summer.
The exact origin of the outbreak is still not entirely clear. Hirji said it could have started at a funeral, which members of at least four impacted households attended. Or it could have started in the second of those homes, and spread to others at the funeral.
Either way, that gathering of mourners became the first significant spoke in a wheel of iCOVID-19 infections.
“The big thing that we found is that at that funeral, there was a lot of close contact with people and a lot of hugging,” Hirji said.
Some of the mourners were wearing masks, but Hirji said they got so close to other people the face coverings became less effective.
Although masks can work at limiting the spread of the novel coronavirus, they are not perfect shields against an infection. That’s why public health experts have urged people to use them in conjunction with physical distancing and hand washing.
Close contact, like hugging people outside one’s social bubble, reduces the effectiveness of a mask.
“Your first line of defence is keeping those two metres apart,” Hirji said.
Eight people linked to the funeral became infected with COVID-19. One of them then spread the virus to at least two other homes and one workplace.
From there, COVID-19 was able to move to still more homes. Others at linked workplaces became infected, then in what the health department labelled a “friendly sports game,” more people contracted the virus.
“We finally determined it was over when we stopped seeing new cases linked to any of these infections,” said Hirji.
None of those infected were hospitalized, and no one in the outbreak died. But Hirji called it an object lesson that Niagara residents preparing for Thanksgiving should pay attention to.
Just because you are spending time with people you know, he said, doesn’t mean there is no risk.
“People will spend time with those they know and think there is no danger, but that is not how it works,” he said.
Hirji remains concerned this long weekend could spawn similar community outbreaks, driving up Niagara’s already elevated daily COVID-19 case count.
Pandemic numbers in Toronto, Peel and Ottawa have grown so bad that on Friday — the same day Ontario posted a record 939 new cases — the provincial government placed new restrictions on those three regions.
Restaurant dining rooms, gyms and other businesses will be closed for 28 days to bring the infection rate down.
Hirji said it is obvious the provincial government wants to limit economic pain, but it will take steps to control the spread of the virus, including closing businesses.
“This is the moment when we all have to be extra safe and really do what we can to keep the virus from spreading,” said Hirji. “This is really the moment when we can have an impact.”
While other regions saw an explosion of cases, there were only nine new cases confirmed in Niagara — a number in line with the region’s new baseline of daily cases.
Hirji said that Niagara holding the infections rate steady gives him a glimmer of hope the region can avoid a second pandemic lockdown.
To avoid the worst, he said, residents need to limit their social contacts, wear masks, maintain physical distancing of two metres and stay home when sick.
“We’ve seen now that it’s not hypothetical,” he said. “We could be moved back into a more restrictive phase.”