Ontario's 7th COVID-19 wave is here, top doctor confirms amid exponential growth

Ontario has officially entered its seventh wave of COVID-19, driven this time by the Omicron BA.5 subvariant, the province's top doctor confirms.

"Sadly yes, we're in another wave," Dr. Kieran Moore told CBC News Wednesday after Ontario's COVID-19 science advisory table pointed to exponential growth in most public health units. 

Moore says the province is now reviewing further eligibility for booster doses and that a decision on that will be coming soon. 

The BA.5 subvariant has been rising slowly since early June but really started to "take off" mid-month, becoming a dominant strain, Moore said. Ontario can likely expect another four to five weeks in this wave, which is now in about its third week, he said, adding infections are expected to increase over the next 10 days before beginning to slow.

The new wave comes amid the summer months when many are spending more time outdoors — something that would have otherwise been expected to help curb the spread of transmission, raising questions about what will happen as more people head indoors later in the year. 

"Lots of unknowns for the fall but I can assure all Ontarians we're preparing for it," said Moore.

WATCH | Ontario's top doctor confirms 7th wave of COVID-19 has begun:

"We may ask Ontarians to wear masks as we go indoors into the fall and we may mandate it if our health system has too many people getting admitted, too many people waiting in emergency departments... All of us want to maintain our health system capacity."

In a series of tweets Wednesday, the science table pointed to several key indicators signalling the beginning of a wave, little more than a month after the end of most public health measures, including mask mandates.

For the first time since May, test positivity is above 10 per cent, with wastewater signals rising across the province overall and within most regions, the science table says.

Around 80 per cent of public health units are seeing exponential growth in cases, though the group says the actual reproduction number is hard to nail down since the province moved to limit PCR testing.

On top of that, Ontario is seeing its first increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations since May, with the number of people admitted for the virus higher than at any time last summer. 

The latest numbers tracked by the science table show that as of June 29, 605 people were hospitalized as a result of the virus. That's an increase of 89 people from the week before.

An estimated six people per day died from the virus as of  July 3, up from three the week before, the group says.