After more than two years of fighting COVID-19, some medical experts in Ontario say the province has entered a sixth wave of the pandemic.
Ontario reported a 23 percent rise week-over-week in COVID-19 hospitalizations on Tuesday, with the Ministry of Health saying there are currently 790 patients with the virus in Ontario hospitals, compared to 639 a week ago.
Forty-seven percent of hospitalized patients were admitted with the virus and 53 percent were admitted for other reasons but tested positive for the virus, the ministry says, according to CP24 News.
“There are more cases now than there were a week ago and two weeks ago,” infectious disease expert Dr. Isaac Bogoch said Tuesday, reports CTV News Canada. “We can call this a wave. We just don’t know the size of the wave. But it’s here.”
Bogoch said Ontario should “watch the hospitalizations closely” over the next few weeks. “We’ll probably start to see early signs of hospitalizations rise in the coming week or two ahead,” he said.
Additionally, Ontario also reported 1,610 new lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, though that is an underestimate of the true widespread transmission of the virus due to testing restrictions. The provincial case total now stands at 1,156,656.
Because PCR testing is limited, the exact number of Ontarians infected with the coronavirus is not known, however, using viral markers in wastewater, the province’s science advisory puts the doubling rate at every 9.6 days.
Dr. Doris Grinspun, the CEO of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, is concerned over the increase in COVID-19 case numbers and hospitalizations.
If we are not careful, people that are waiting for surgeries and procedures will again be postponed because we don’t have enough human resources in the system,” she said.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health says the province has the tools to handle the impact of COVID-19.
“The latest modeling shows that our hospitals and health system can manage any of the projected scenarios, while not compromising our ability to continue addressing the surgical backlog caused by the pandemic,” Bill Campbell writes in a statement.
