Super-spreader cluster linked to GTA
Outbreak among 20-somethings hit two long-term-care homes
The Niagara COVID-19 superspreader cluster responsible for the proliferation of the novel coronavirus in dozens of local bars, homes and stores now has links to cases in the Greater Toronto Area, the St. Catharines Standard has learned.
Even as the cluster in Niagara appears to be winding down — there were no new local cases linked to it in the 73 infections confirmed over the past three days — its widening gyre touched other communities, although the region’s top public health official was unwilling to say which communities have been impacted.
Dr. Mustafa Hirji, Niagara’s acting medical officer of health, said the number of linked cases outside Niagara appears to be in the single digits at the moment, although he could not provide an accurate count.
There are at least 41 local cases that belong to the cluster that began to form in the first week of October and has spread to eight Niagara municipalities and triggered COVID-19 outbreaks in at least two longterm-care homes.
Hirji has declined to say which homes were affected and if residents in those homes with COVID-19 have died, citing privacy concerns.
There have been at least 11 COVID-19 related deaths in Niagara since Oct. 5, including one on Monday. Ten of those cases are residents of long-term-care homes, including six from Gilmore Lodge in Fort Erie.
There are six Niagara longterm- care and retirement homes grappling with secondwave outbreaks.
The cluster, comprising people in their early- to mid-20s, began to form as the post-summer pandemic wave began. Hirji said the cluster is the re
sult of people having close contact with people in bars and at house parties where there was little physical distancing or mask-wearing.
The infected people all have a large number of close contacts, sometimes as many as 40, that could have been exposed to the novel coronavirus — the organism that causes the COVID-19 disease.
Niagara contact tracers have reached out to more 213 people over the past month in a bid to find cases linked to the cluster.
Given Niagara’s proximity to other communities, and that people under 40 are largely driving new cases in Ontario, it was not surprising that the cluster is linked to cases outside the region, said Hirji.
Public health units in Ontario use a shared database called CCM to track to COVID-19 across the province. That database includes how cases are linked from one community to another.
Hirji said when Niagara’s public health contact tracers link a local case to someone in another community, the health unit in that region is contacted and they can link the cases in the database.
However, as new cases emerge in other communities that are linked eventually to a Niagara infection, the region’s public health department won’t necessarily be informed, meaning it will take effort to know exactly how many people in Ontario have been infected because of this single cluster.
Although there have been no Niagara cases linked to the cluster in past 72 hours, Hirji said he is not ready to say it has finally run aground.
“No new cases is hopefully a positive sign that we have broken that train of transmission,” he said. “But we really need to see what happens through this week.”