Waterloo region hospitals face 'tenuous' time as 6th COVID-19 wave hits workers

The sixth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is putting pressure on local healthcare facilities as workers either stay home sick with the virus or because they're a close contact of someone who is symptomatic, officials say.

"This wave, it's a staff impact wave," said Patrick Gaskin, president and CEO of Cambridge Memorial Hospital. 

He noted that as of Friday, an estimated 500 workers were off work because of COVID-19 in Waterloo-Wellington hospitals. At Cambridge Memorial alone there were about 70 staff members off on Friday due to COVID — and, he noted, that's with all staff members vaccinated.

On top of that, workers in long-term care, retirement homes and community care services who help people in their homes are also being impacted, he said.

"Health care is not a work-from-home type of service. You can't get your nursing care by Zoom," he said. "We need to recognize that, for us, this wave is having an impact as significant, almost as Omicron right now."

He said most hospitals are back to 70 per cent or 80 per cent of surgery case loads.

"We recognize the backlog that patients have endured in terms of the delays for surgery, and we are committed to doing those surgeries as quickly as possible," Gaskin said. "That said, it is tenuous at times because of staffing issues."

More hospitalizations, outbreaks 

The Region of Waterloo Public Health dashboard on Friday indicated 43 people were in the region's three hospitals with COVID-19. That's up from 12 people two weeks earlier.

There were six people in the intensive care unit who either had COVID-19 or were recovering from it.

The region reported 20 outbreaks on Friday, including eight in long-term care and retirement homes.

There were also 97 new cases reported Friday, after 196 were reported Thursday, and that's with COVID-19 testing limited to only certain people.

As case numbers started to rise earlier this month, the region's medical officer of health Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang said it was not a surprise.

"This is likely due to greater contacts between people following the lifting of restrictions and the Omicron BA.2 subvariant becoming dominant in Ontario and our community," she said in an emailed statement.

She encouraged people to:

• Get vaccinated and stay up to date on recommended doses. As of this week, people aged 60 and older can receive a fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
• Continue to wear a mask indoors.
• Stay home when sick.
• Ensure gatherings are in well-ventilated areas or spend time outside.

COVID-19 wastewater signals rise

Mark Servos is a University of Waterloo biology professor and the Canada Research Chair in water quality protection. He has been analyzing the COVID-19 signals in the region's wastewater.

"It's definitely rising," he said. "And it doesn't really show any tendency to be slowing down."

He said COVID-19 signals in the wastewater in Waterloo shot up significantly since mid-March, while the increase has been more gradual in Kitchener and Cambridge. He said the wastewater signals is almost entirely the highly transmissible Omicron BA.2 subvariant.

"The virus is spreading very rapidly around our communities," he said.

"It's like knowing that there's going to be a thunderstorm and you're going boating. You know that you're putting yourself in a more risky situation. So people should be paying attention and taking precautions."

He said like a weather forecast, the wastewater data can offer a prediction for the next few days, but things become murkier the further out researchers try to look.

"This virus has been very tricky and it's very difficult to predict in the longer term as to what's going on," he said.

"What we know right now, though, is that the virus is high. It's spreading in our community. It's not going to drop in just a couple of days. So it's going to continue to rain and there's thunderstorms on the horizon."