{"id":30615,"date":"2022-01-13T21:41:28","date_gmt":"2022-01-14T02:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=30615"},"modified":"2022-01-20T19:49:09","modified_gmt":"2022-01-21T00:49:09","slug":"omicron-is-unlike-anything-we-have-encountered-during-pandemic-says-southlake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/omicron-is-unlike-anything-we-have-encountered-during-pandemic-says-southlake\/","title":{"rendered":"Omicron is \u201cunlike anything we have encountered\u201d during pandemic, says Southlake"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Over the span of last week, Southlake Regional Health Centre saw the number of patients admitted to hospital increase from 20 to more than 60, leading to an alarm bell being sounded for doctors and nurses on the frontlines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last Thursday, Southlake said the spread of the Omicron variant was \u201cunlike anything we have encountered in the pandemic to date\u201d and warned they continue to see \u201csignificant numbers\u201d of hospital staff test positive or require time off due to exposure to COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBased on Provincial directives and the need to preserve hospital capacity and reduce the spread of the virus, Southlake has had to make a series of difficult decisions,\u201d said the hospital. \u201cWith cases and hospitalizations increasing at an alarming pace, all hospitals in Ontario have been directed to cancel selected surgeries in order to increase bed capacity and free up staff to be redeployed. Southlake is following this directive and staff from our surgical program have already started to care for patients in other areas of the hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStaffing has become a significant challenge and we are doing everything we can to mitigate this. Healthcare workers are now more impacted by the increased spread of COVID-19 in the community than ever before. This, combined with the increased number of patients in the hospital with COVID-19, continues to put pressure on our teams. Similar to previous waves, we have started to redeploy staff into different areas of the hospital based on patient need. Our amazing staff and physicians are the heart and soul of Southlake. Their dedication, tenacity and compassion has been a constant source of inspiration throughout the pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The struggle faced by hospitals like Southlake in response to the Omicron variant was tackled at the start of the week by Dr. Barry Pakes, York Region\u2019s Medical Officer of Health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cancellation of some surgeries, he said, along with the closure of schools until at least January 17, are \u201cdesigned to keep the burden on the healthcare system to a minimum.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe understand how frustrating the return to these restrictions could be, but we have seen from experience they can truly make a difference and hopefully this time they will be more short-lived,\u201d said Dr. Pakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People might feel, he added, that the fight against COVID-19 is \u201cmoving backward rather than forward,\u201d but said there are still \u201cgood news stories\u201d coming out of the local fight, including York Region\u2019s decision to lift the limits on boosters through the local health unit and expanding eligibility to residents between the ages of 18 and 49. There is also a new priority for education workers getting their boosters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOntario data suggests that vaccine effectiveness with a booster against infection is still in the 30 \u2013 40 per cent range with Pfizer and close to 60 per cent with Moderna,\u201d he said. \u201cMore importantly, protection against hospitalization and severe illness is in the 70 \u2013 80 per cent range. The booster can truly make a difference for each of us and for our healthcare system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor those small number of York Region residents who are still unvaccinated, I have a special message and a special plea: while infections are occurring in vaccinated and unvaccinated alike, the hospitalization, ICU admissions and deaths are largely in the unvaccinated. This is true in Ontario and across the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vaccines will also be integral, he added, in making sure there is a return to school sooner rather than later, underscoring the value of in-person learning to students\u2019 mental and physical wellbeing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

York Region Public Health is \u201cadvocating a return to in-person learning and continuing to engage with schools and the Province to support this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe most important thing you can do to get students back to sustained in-person learning is to get your child vaccinated,\u201d he concluded. \u201cOver half of York Region children are vaccinated and without higher coverage, we might continue to see unfortunately high numbers of children visiting emergency rooms and being admitted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LOCAL STATS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of Monday, January 10, Aurora was grappling with 263 confirmed active cases of COVID-19, but, as York Region Public Health notes, this number is an under-estimate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith rapid transmission of Omicron and recent provincial changes in testing eligibility and case management, case counts and outbreaks reported through the COVID-19 in York Region interactive dashboard are an under-estimate of the true number of individuals with COVID-19 and outbreaks in York Region,\u201d the Region stated, adding case counts should be treated with caution. \u201cPublic Health units across Ontario are prioritizing case management of high-risk individuals and settings. Workplace outbreaks are no longer reported.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the confirmed active cases, 235 are attributed to local transmission, close contact or unknown exposure and 28 to institutional outbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the start of the global pandemic, York Region Public Health has been able to confirm 3,545 cases of COVID-19 as of Monday. 3,234 cases are now marked as resolved and there have been 48 fatalities attributed to the virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

91 per cent of Aurora residents aged 12 and up have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 89.6 per cent had received two doses by the start of the week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the span of last week, Southlake Regional Health Centre saw the number of patients admitted to hospital increase from 20 to more than 60, leading to an alarm bell being sounded for doctors and nurses on the frontlines. Last Thursday, Southlake said the spread of the Omicron variant was \u201cunlike anything we have encountered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-7XN","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-10 11:49:37","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}