It was Niagara’s deadliest pandemic weekend
It will take time before COVID death rate slows down, says Hirji
This past weekend was the deadliest two days Niagara has faced thus far in the pandemic, and the region’s top public health official says the local COVID-19 death rate will likely continue to climb even as the overall infection rate appears to be dropping.
At least 22 local residents — most of them elderly residents of long-term-care and retirement homes — infected with the novel coronavirus died between Friday night and Monday morning, bringing the region’s cumulative total to 276 people. At least 211 of those people died since the first secondwave death was reported on Oct. 5.
In the first eight months of the pandemic, at least 65 people with COVID-19 died.
The local death rate has accelerated recently, with 174 deaths being reported since Christmas.
Dr. Mustafa Hirji, Niagara’s acting medical officer of health, said Monday so many residents of long-term-care homes became infected in the month — and many of them are still battling the virus — that the next few weeks will likely be marked by more death.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think that is going to change in the short term,” said Hirji, who noted the pandemic’s pattern has
been a rise in cases, followed by a rise in outbreaks, followed by an increasing death rate.
The combination of a falling overall infection rate and an ongoing vaccination program will take time to blunt the death rate among the community’s most vulnerable, Hirji said.
Although it was the most lethal weekend of the pandemic to date, the sharp spike in deaths went largely unnoticed by local leaders Monday. Only St. Catharines Mayor Walter Sendzik shared thoughts of condolence on Twitter in response to a tweet by the St. Catharines Standard.
Hirji said he hopes the public has not become complacent about COVID-19 deaths, but said in the public consciousness the notion of the virus killing many vulnerable people has become “baked in” as the pandemic has worsened.
When there are deaths in a manner people do not expect — a rash of deaths by suicide or deaths in car crashes — the public tends to be more shocked, even if in all those cases steps could have been taken to prevent those outcomes.
Niagara saw its daily case count fall Monday to its lowest level since mid-december, with 66 new cases. Hirji warned that too much cannot be made of a single day’s data, but it does fit with the
trend that emerged last week of lower daily cases.
“It likely means that, yes, our base daily case count is down,” he said. “I don’t think we will likely see cases that low over the next few days, but it is a sign that the case down is going down.”
Beyond the daily cases, other metrics are pointing toward the re-flattening of Niagara’s COVID-19 curve. The number of active cases has fallen sharply and the number of outbreaks has remained steady.
Hirji said it is hard to pinpoint a single cause for the falling case count, but said it is likely a combination of the
Boxing Day provincial lockdown, the more recent stay-athome orders and being clear of the holiday season, when gatherings helped trigger Niagara’s COVID-19 crisis.
“And, hopefully, people are just aware of how serious it is and are staying home,” said Hirji, who noted it would not take much for Niagara’s infection rate to rise quickly.
“Hopefully, this will be taken as a sign for people that they should stay home and remain diligent.”