61 people in Waterloo region's hospitals with COVID-19 on Wednesday

There were 61 people infectious with COVID-19 in Waterloo region's three hospitals as of Wednesday.

That was a rise of 10 cases from Tuesday.

There were six people in the intensive care unit, which was one less than Tuesday. The region notes on its dashboard that people in the ICU may no longer be infectious with COVID-19, but still require ongoing care. It does not break that number down further.

Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang, the region's medical officer of health, says hospitals are concerned about the sheer number of people who will need to be hospitalized in the coming days and weeks.

"With Omicron, it is expected that it will be hospitalizations and relatively shorter hospitalizations as opposed to longer ones, rather than ICU admissions, that will drive the health-care capacity challenges," Wang said Tuesday evening at a board of health meeting.

2 COVID-related deaths

There were two COVID-related deaths reported in the region on Wednesday, bothwere men in their 80s. It brought the total number of COVID-related deathsin the region to 317.

There were 4,025 active cases in the region on Wednesday.

Public health reported 655 new COVID-19 cases, which is considered to be an underestimate becausenot everyone with symptoms is able to get a PCR test to confirm their diagnosis.

Even with the underestimate of new cases, there have been 2,870 cases reported in this first five days of this month. That makes January the third highest month for total case numbers. It is behind the 5,013 cases reported in December 2021 and 3,356 cases reported in January 2021.

22 reported outbreaks

There were 22 reported outbreaks in the region. That included 13 at long-term care homes. (Note: the table has two pages of data.)

There were five outbreaks in congregate settings, three at Grand River Hospital in Kitchener and one at St. Mary's General Hospital.

The region's vaccination dashboard showed 76.34 per cent of all people in the region have received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.