COVID-19 outbreaks are now less severe

Most hospital patients with virus are being treated for other illnesses, Ali says

Just as one COVID-19 outbreak is brought under control in Niagara, another seems to begin.

But Niagara Health’s medical director for infection prevention and control, Dr. Karim Ali, said recent outbreaks are much less severe than those the region was dealing with a year ago.

An outbreak that had been underway on the third floor of St. Catharines hospital since April 19 was declared over on Tuesday, just as an outbreak began on the fourth floor of Welland hospital.

It’s one of nine outbreaks at Niagara Health facilities, including in Port Colborne, Niagara Falls, Welland and St. Catharines.

There’s also an outbreak at West Lincoln Memorial Hospital in Grimsby that began Monday, and 15 long-term-care facilities are experiencing outbreaks, too.

Considering the amount of infection in the community, Ali said “outbreaks are par for the course.”

Although Niagara Health had 91 patients being treated for the virus on Wednesday, up from 87 a day earlier, Ali said 60 of those patients were being treated primarily for other illnesses while, for most of them, illness associated with COVID-19 was relatively mild.

Ali said there were eight COVID-19 patients in intensive care, up from six, but only two or three of them are being treated primarily for the virus.

Unvaccinated patients continue to be among the sickest, he added.

“You see this time and again, the burden of disease remains disproportionately with the unvaccinated

The burden of disease remains disproportionately with the unvaccinated. DR. KARIM ALI NIAGARA HEALTH

patients.”

With 1,617 known active infections in the community reported by Niagara Region Public Health, the “high level of community transmission will definitely feed into the hospital,” he said.

“One thing we have now is access to antiviral medications. A lot of patients when outbreaks are declared, we give them Remdesivir, provided they meet the criteria, to prevent progression of the disease, so they don’t get severely ill. We have been successful in doing that. That has helped curtail a lot of severe disease,” he said.

Ali said, “Omicron is a different beast all together in terms of the sheer number of people it infects.”

But because it often leads to milder illness, he said the medical response to future outbreaks “has to adapt accordingly.”

“We’re not there yet, but that’s something we will look at with guidance from the Ministry (of Health),” Ali said.

Meanwhile, the virus continues to claim lives in Niagara — including a patient who died in hospital on Tuesday — the sixth reported this week.

“We should not downplay this,” Ali said. “The pandemic isn’t over.”