Health experts warn Ontarians to keep masks on as COVID-19 hospitalizations mount
CBC
Ontario is reporting 778 people hospitalized with COVID-19 Wednesday as health experts are cautioning people to keep wearing masks as the province sees a rise in hospital occupancy in the wake of public health measures being lifted.
Dr. Peter Jüni, head of Ontario's COVID-19 science advisory table, says the province is seeing the effect of easing of public health measures in the past few weeks — including the lifting of mask mandates in most settings and the end of gathering limits.
"We're seeing quite the steep increase right now in wastewater predominantly, and it starts to be followed now by an increase in hospital occupancy," Jüni told CBC News Wednesday morning.
"We are in the middle of it, however we call it. It's either the resurgence expected after the reopening of the last wave or you can call it the sixth wave."
Experts predicted a rise in cases and hospitalizations with measures lifting, but urged Ontarians to continue being cautious and wear a mask in busy indoor environments.
Jüni said the latest projections made by the science table that predicted an increase in hospital occupancy will need to be re-evaluated based on the behaviour health experts are seeing. Those predictions saw an increase of hospitalizations, though not one as high as the peak of the Omicron wave of the pandemic.
Jüni said that he doesn't anticipate the burden on the province's healthcare system will be as high as previous waves due to high vaccination rates but notes it is difficult to know how big of an impact it will have.
He continued to urge Ontarians to take precautions.
"We should change our behaviour only moderately and slowly to make sure that the upward slope is not too steep."
Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious diseases expert with University Health Network, said it's "pretty clear" wastewater signals are trending upwards, also noting that another wave is underway.
WATCH | Infectious disease specialist on rise in wastewater signals:
"There's more COVID now than there was a week or two ago, [but] the real question here is 'How big will this wave be? not 'Is there a wave?'" Bogoch told CBC News Tuesday.
"I don't think it's going to be as big as the wave we just had [but] again it's going to be something."
Wastewater surveillance data is helpful for experts to project the virus transmission in specific areas and how that will impact hospitals in coming days or weeks while figures such as hospitalizations and ICU occupancy are "delayed metrics," he noted.
Ferry crossings are cancelled and over a thousand households are left without power Saturday morning, due to high winds and severe weather conditions.
Tens of thousands of Nova Scotia Power customers are waking up without power on Saturday morning after high winds and rain hit the province on Friday night.
Statistics Canada is reporting a population decrease last quarter for New Brunswick — its largest quarterly decline since the 1970s, according to an economic development consultant.
Residents clapped, danced, sang and cried in the Anishinaabe community of Kitcisakik this week when the lights were finally turned on for the first time.
A man is suing three members of a Winnipeg family and a real estate broker he alleges used his intellectual disability to financially exploit him through property deals in Canada and India, leaving him out hundreds of thousands of dollars.
When Stephanie Gamble watched her mother model the first dress she made, smiling wide and walking an imaginary runway, she knew that was what she wanted to keep doing in her life.
'Tis the season for cuddling on the couch with a cup of hot chocolate and watching holiday movies. And for people in B.C.'s Interior, that can increasingly mean seeing their home communities on display.
Every year, snowy owls spread their wings and migrate down to the Prairies, where they enjoy access to plenty of rodent prey in vast open spaces.
This month has been a busy stretch at the Upper Room Food Bank in Charlottetown.
N.W.T. Education Minister Caitlin Cleveland says she has received the final report from an independent investigation into education bodies in the Dehcho region.
P.E.I.’s auditor general says he’s concerned and disappointed that the projected deficit has doubled what government initially estimated it would be — and he's urging the province to balance its budget.
A man found not criminally responsible for stabbing five people to death at a Calgary house party is getting more freedoms but not an absolute discharge.
A man has been found guilty of second-degree murder in the shooting death of a Toronto mother outside a supervised consumption site in Leslieville.