158 new virus cases; shelter outbreak grows

Officials raise concerns over possibility outbreaks could push more vulnerable people into the streets

Hamilton recorded 158 new COVID-19 cases and six new deaths over the weekend as an outbreak at a downtown homeless shelter tripled in size.

Four of the deaths appear to be people in their 80s and over, while the remaining two are in their 70s.

One of the deaths occurred at the St. Elizabeth Retirement Residence, where five people have died since Dec. 25. Fifty-nine people have been infected with COVID-19 at the west Mountain home, nine of those cases — five staff and four residents — are new, reported by public health Sunday.

An outbreak declared at Mission Services men’s shelter on Jan. 14 more than tripled by Sunday.

Seven people — four clients and three staff — have now tested positive for novel coronavirus at the James Street North shelter.

A routine round of surveillance testing Wednesday detected a positive case in an asymptomatic client, said Wendy Kennelly, the agency’s associate executive director. A round of followup testing Friday revealed six more cases.

All four clients have been transferred to the city’s isolation centre for people who are homeless during the pandemic. The infected staff members — two shelter workers and one operations worker — are self-isolating at home.

Kennelly said an extra round of testing was conducted Sunday.

“I’d say I’m feeling worried.”

DR. TIM O’SHEA HAMILTON SOCIAL MEDICINE RESPONSE TEAM MEMBER

Mission Services has temporarily paused new admissions to the shelter, but it is currently at its 42-bed capacity.

The uptick in cases comes as shelter systems raise concerns over how outbreaks could inadvertently lead to more people sleeping rough.

“I’d say I’m feeling worried,” said Dr. Tim O’Shea, a member of the Hamilton Social Medicine Response Team who led the round of testing at Mission Services.

A person who stayed at a shelter during an outbreak is not permitted to stay in others, O’Shea added.

“So that’s led to an increase in the number of people that have been sleeping outside or in very precarious situations in other settings.”

Kennelly said staff shortages at the shelter are not yet a concern as the agency boosted its workforce in recent months in case of outbreaks. The good news, she added, is staff at the men’s shelter received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine Saturday.

“We’re doing everything that we can to ensure that we don’t have further spread.”

Meanwhile, a surgical unit at the Juravinski Hospital and Cancer Centre is under outbreak protocol after four patients and two staff tested positive.

The outbreak, declared Friday at the hospital’s F4 unit, marks the ninth ongoing outbreak at Hamilton hospitals.

Seven of the outbreaks are at Hamilton Health Sciences and two are at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton.

They come as short-staffed hospitals deal with a surge in COVID patients.

Twenty-three cases have been hospitalized since Friday. Hamilton Health Sciences confirmed to The Spectator that a new COVID-19 unit has been prepared at the Juravinski hospital to deal with the influx of patients.

The unit, comprised of 40 beds in an existing ward, was open as of Friday.

In a splash of good news, active case counts in Hamilton dropped by nearly 100 over the weekend, from 972 on Friday to 879 on Sunday.

The city has a total of 8,117 COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic. Of those, 6,716 — 83 per cent — have been resolved.