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, the province’s chief medical officer, 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:
Ontario’s top doctor confirms 7th wave of COVID-19 has begun
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According to the province’s top doctor, 66 per cent of new circulating strains are now the BA.5 strain, driving an increase in test positivity and hospitalizations.
“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.
Test positivity above 10% for 1st time since May
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.
4) ~80% of public health units have exponential growth in cases (Rt>1), indicating this is occurring across the province (Note, Rt is harder to interpret given limited PCR testing).<br>(7/17) <a href=”https://t.co/XXwMWwNCU1″>pic.twitter.com/XXwMWwNCU1</a>
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.
Indications of a new wave in Ontario come as several G10 countries have already seen a jump in cases driven by Omicron subvariants, including France, the U.K., Italy, Belgium and Switzerland, among others.
Get 3rd doses ‘now’ if you haven’t already, group says
The group says current evidence does not suggest BA.5 is more severe than strains that drove previous waves or that it will lead to the level of hospitalizations seen at earlier points in the pandemic.
“However, any surge comes at a time when hospitals are already dealing with staff shortages and record wait times — this impacts all of us,” the advisory table said.
“And if BA.5 spreads widely, we may see a rise in deaths among higher risk groups such as the elderly as was observed during the previous waves.”
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Barry Pakes is the Medical Officer of Health for York Region.
The group advises anyone in a crowded indoor public setting to wear a high-quality mask and to ventilate as much as possible by opening doors and window for air flow.
Anyone over the age of 18 who hasn’t had a third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine should “get it now,” the group says.
Anyone age 60 or over or immunocompromised should also take their fourth dose now, it says, noting while updated vaccines targeted to newer variants might be available this fall, “it makes sense to get the vaccines you are eligible for now.”
LISTEN | What the new COVID subvariant means for Ontario:
Metro Morning13:50What the new COVID subvariant means for Ontario
COVID is on the rise in Ontario, and the new BA.5 subvariant is soon expected to become the dominant strain in the province, says Dr. Fahad Razak, the head of Ontario’s COVID-19 science advisory table. Dr. Sohal Goyal, lead physician of a ‘COVID, Cold and Flu Clinic’ in Mississauga, says he’s seeing an uptick in patients.
“You can be re-infected by BA.5 even if you have recently been infected with an earlier strain,” the group says. “Non-severe infections can still be disruptive to your life and increase long COVID risk.”
Providing a clear, full picture about the state of COVID-19 has become increasingly difficult over the last several months, after the provincial government restricted lab testing and stopped publishing school-related data.
On June 11, the province also switched to weekly reporting of COVID-19 data after more than two years of daily updates.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
