Ontario has entered a summer wave of COVID-19 as hospitalizations and sewage figures slowly creep up, infectious disease experts say.
“We are in one. This is the real deal. I don’t know how big it’s going to get, but it’s here,” Toronto infectious disease specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch told CTV News Toronto on Monday.
Bogoch points to the COVID-19 wastewater data as a central indicator. Throughout June, these figures have been going up. This follows a sharp drop in viral activity found in Ontario’s wastewater for most of the spring.
Along with sewage, Bogoch points to an increase in the number of people testing positive for COVID-19. While testing is limited, the seven-day average for new cases detected through PCR testing is up 34 percent from the week, according to the province’s latest data.
“It’s a very reliable indicator, even though we don’t test widely,” Bogoch said. “At least we’re testing consistently.”
He said hospitalizations, a lagging indicator of the spread of COVID-19, were also increasing. The latest government figures show there are 585 people in Ontario hospitals who have tested positive for the virus, up from 486 a week earlier.
“This is largely due to Omicron’s BA.5 sub-line. We know this is probably the dominant option right now in most of Canada. And it has the ability to overcome some of the protective immunity that we would get from vaccination or recovery from infection,” he said.
Back in May, Dr. Kieran Moore, the province’s chief medical officer of health, predicted a “low level of endemic activity” in the summer, followed by higher transmission in the fall due to an increase in indoor activities. But since then, the BA.5 – the fastest-growing sub-variant – has spread rapidly across Ontario.
Dr. Sumon Chakrabarti, an infectious disease specialist in Mississauga, said while BA. 5 largely swept the country, the timing of this wave is worth noting.
“In the summer, the health care system is much better equipped to deal with it and absorb it,” he said.
Compared to the Omicron wave in December, Chakrabarty said he doesn’t expect to see the same magnitude.
“We just have to remember the nature of respiratory viruses, especially as they become a little more transmissible and become more immune evasive.” There’s an equilibrium that forms between the community and the virus, and you see this ripple activity,” Chakrabarti explained.
“This wave will be different and not the same intensity as the previous ones.”
When speaking with CP24 on Monday afternoon, the scientific director of Ontario’s Scientific Advisory Panel on COVID-19 would not confirm that Ontario is specifically in another wave of the pandemic, saying only that “the virus has turned out to be a really terrible opponent.”
“It has mutated to such an extent that what is currently circulating in Ontario, Canada and the world is almost unrecognizable compared to what we saw originally,” said Dr. Fahad Razak. “It’s really unclear what will happen in the future.
“However, autumn will be a high-risk period for us because it’s not just COVID. So are the other respiratory viruses like influenza, RSV, so we have to be aware of that,” he said.
Razak urged residents to continue getting their COVID-19 vaccine to better protect themselves from the virus.
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