With an 'Omicron tsunami' forecast for Ontario, people must limit non-essential contact: public health

Waterloo region's top public health officials are calling on residents to curb holiday plans and schedule their vaccines as an "Omicron tsunami" is forecast to hit Ontario.

"Projections indicate that it will likely be our hardest wave to date," medical officer of health Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang said during a COVID-19 briefing Friday. "This is a disheartening message to deliver any time and especially before the holiday season."

Although people can't "prevent this tsunami from arriving onshore," Wang said that it's possible to blunt its impact through a combination of vaccination and reducing social contact. 

On Friday, Ontario reported 3,124 new cases of COVID-19, the most in more than seven months and a 115 per cent increase over the same time last week.

The increased transmissibility of the Omicron variant makes it crucial that each person reduce non-essential contacts — a move that will limit the virus's ability to spread, Wang said. 

"Reduce your social contacts starting from today and into the holidays." 

Severe consequences, like intensive care admissions and deaths, typically jump a few weeks after a new wave of cases arise. Wang said that swift action now will hopefully curb the spread of the infection and limit the number of people who experience severe illness.

"Not acting before we start to see rapidly escalating hospitalisations, ICU admissions and deaths means we will be too late," Wang added.

Dr. Matthew Tenenbaum, associate medical officer of health with Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health, said that reducing social contacts will require people to scale down their holiday plans. 

"I think that before Omicron was on our radars, many people in our community were hoping for a more normal Christmas, a chance to gather, perhaps some larger groups or with more relaxed measures," Tenenbaum told CBC K-W's The Morning Edition.

"Our message is that unfortunately, this is not going to be the reality we live in this holiday season. This definitely sucks, but the key thing is that we need to [stick to] the measures we've been following over the course of the pandemic and not forget those basics." 

It's critical that families keep holiday gatherings "very, very small," Tenenbaum said. 

"This is not the time for a 50-person Christmas party, for example," he said. 

Additionally, he said people should make sure that everyone attending their Christmas gathering is feeling well and that no one's there who has a fever or other COVID-19 symptoms.