Hospitals don't feel like they're out of 3rd COVID wave, says St. Mary's General president

Hospitalizations from COVID-19 continue to be high in Waterloo region, even as daily case numbers have trended downward from the winter but still show periodic upward spikes.

On Wednesday, there were 34 people in the region's hospitals, and 20 of them were in the intensive care unit.

All the people in local hospitals are from the local community.

"We feel we're still very much in the third wave," Lee Fairclough, president of St. Mary's General Hospital in Kitchener, Ont., told CBC.

"Over this past weekend, we saw some very troubling trends."

At the beginning of the month, St. Mary's General's infectious admissions was as low as five patients. Over the last week, Fairclough said that jumped to 16 and there are still 12 people in hospital receiving care who are no longer infectious.

"These are not transfers from other regions. We've not received patients from the GTA or Manitoba for several weeks. These are residents in our area that we serve," she said.

Fairclough added the people being admitted to hospital are "quite symptomatic and quite critically ill. And we're also seeing trends among family members multiple members of the same family requiring some admissions."

Delta variant in community

It has yet to be confirmed whether the latest patients in hospital have the delta variant, also called the B1617 variant first detected in India, as testing for variants requires additional testing beyond determining a positive COVID-19 result.

Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang, the region's medical officer of health, has warned it is a highly transmissible variant and could lead to a fourth wave if people aren't careful.

Dr. Julie Emili, an associate medical officer of health with the region, spoke at the regional council meeting Wednesday night and said the delta variant is definitely in the region.

She said a congregate setting outbreak saw an increase in cases in a shorter time compared to other outbreaks.

"The slower drop in our case counts, despite an increase in vaccination rates, may suggest the delta variant is more present in our community," she said.

Emili said people can curb the spread of the delta variant by following public health measures:

• Limit close contact to family members.
• Gather only outdoors.
• Maintain physical distance.
• Wear a face covering.
• Get vaccinated as soon as eligible.

Fairclough added people need to remember it takes 14 days after receiving an inoculationbefore thefull effect of the vaccine kicks in.

Delays in some surgeries

The increased number of people in the region's hospitals will impact the hospitals' ability to ramp up various surgeries, Fairclough said.

Earlier this month,"we were starting to feel somewhat hopeful ... we had seen the cases reduced in requiring admission."

"We've been trying to resume services. We got day surgeries started. And, you know, this week the plan was to try to move to do more procedures that might require an inpatient or critical care stay. But this trend of an increase in these admissions over the past week, that's going to interfere with that again," she said.

Fairclough says frontline workers are very tired at this point.

"The reality is that when people are admitted with COVID, especially in this wave, they're staying longer and they're requiring more critical care. So from the perspective of our front line workers, we're still very much making our way through wave three."