COVID-19 hospitalizations almost double in 4 days at London's largest hospital
CBC
The region's largest hospital is feeling the burden of the highly-transmissible Omicron variant as more patients infected with COVID-19 are admitted.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) said Tuesday it had 59 people in hospital with the virus, ten of whom are in critical care. The hospital took a four-day holiday hiatus on reporting data. In that time, the number of inpatients nearly doubled.
Public Health Ontario forecasts show the sheer number of cases caused by Omicron threatens to overwhelm the province's health-care system. On Tuesday, two hospitals in the GTA declared a "code orange," meaning there were more patients needing care than available resources.
The hospital said it is treating fewer than five children for the virus. It said 210 staff have tested positive.
LHSC's vice president Carol Young-Ritchie said the hospital has contingency plans in place to address staff shortages and is monitoring the situation daily.
She added that provincial guidelines, which have paused non-urgent surgeries, can help prevent a code orange situation since staff can now be reassigned to perform other duties.
The hospital said Tuesday it would "significantly reduce surgeries and diagnostic imaging" to only urgent and emergent cases.
In-person appointments will be transitioned to virtual appointments, where possible, and resources will be focused on clinics that support "hospital diversion or discharge."
Ontario is no longer providing PCR tests for everyone, having recently changed its guidelines. With that in mind, local case counts no longer reflect the real situation. Ontario's COVID-19 Science Advisory Table estimates that roughly one in five cases are currently being confirmed by the province's testing regime.
The Middlesex London Health Unit (MLHU) said Tuesday it had 544 new cases of COVID-19.
Acting medical officer of health, Dr. Alex Summers said that a radical shift in strategy is needed in the face of the variant, so previous contact tracing measures used during the delta wave don't have the same impact anymore.
"Omicron is moving more quickly than we can identify or contain. Testing for it and the subsequent case investigations it used to trigger, is no longer preventing transmission," said Summers.
Case investigations and outbreak management will now focus on highest-risk settings. These include: hospitals, long-term care and retirement homes, congregate living settings where people who are immunocompromised live, and First Nations communities.
"Cases in other settings will not be notified, nor will they be investigated by the health unit," Summers added.
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