46 Hamiltonians died after contracting COVID-19 in the last month, public health says

There were 46 people in Hamilton who died after contracting COVID-19 in the last month, according to data presented by the city's Public Health Services.

The number of deaths which includes those who died from November to December 4stands in stark contrast to September and October. Just one person died in September whiletwo people died in October.

Stephanie Hughes, an epidemiologist with the city, pointed to the 44 outbreaks in Hamilton that started in the past month. The impacts of these outbreaks have been greatly felt in long-term care homes, she said, and the severity of cases has worsened.

There have been 599 cases in outbreaks from September to last Friday, and of these, 359 were in long-term care homes.Most of them were residents or patients.

Average of 67 new cases a day

While most people with the virus are aged 20 to 29, which is similar to the start of fall, there's been a rise of positive tests among those in their 80s, which used to make up the smallest proportion of cases.

Dr. Elizabeth Richardson, the city's medical officer of health, calledit a "sobering Monday" with the city sitting at the high end of the province's red zone and more hospitalizations occurring.

"We're continuing to be concerned both as [the spread of the virus] moves into that older age group and into institutions [with] more vulnerable peoplethat will have pressures on the system," she said. "I think we're very much experiencing that right now."

Also adding pressure on hospitals, she said, is the rise in positive tests overall. There used to be an average of one case reported each day in September, but that now hovers at 67 new cases every day.

Making up for the hospital backlog

She said public health is monitoring the capacity of hospitals very closely.

The overall medical and surgical hospital funded capacity at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton was sitting at 94 per cent, and Hamilton Health Sciences was at 100 per cent as of Friday.

Should the hospitals' capacitiesbe greatly exceeded, they have plans to ramp down surgeries if need be, she said. But these would take into account those who need urgent care, such as cancer patients.

"That is also whythey were trying to get back to over 100 per cent capacity over the last many months in order to move more people through the system," she said. "But they do have a whole hierarchy and plan that is established."

Richardson said this differs from earlier in the year, where hospitals wanted to make sure there was room for those with COVID-19, though a surge of patients never came. They were being cautiousafter seeing countries like Italy, who suffered dire consequences where hospitalized patients with the virus spread COVID-19 through institutions.

But more has been learned about the virus and PPEsince, she said, and healthcare has "been trying to get more than usual levels of care going on in the hospitals in order to make up for that backlog."

"We need to do that. There are still people that need to catch up, and it's going to take some time to catch up," she said.

ALC patients rising

Patients who need an alternate level of care are also increasing, Richardson said, and additional beds will be opened up on Dec. 14.

It's been challenging to get people who should be in long-term care homes out of the hospital, Richardson said, because the homes have closed beds for infection control and outbreaks have continued.

HHS is meanwhile backing up London Health Sciences, the site ofan outbreak.

Two programs are in place to help keep people with mild or moderate disease out of hospitals, Richardson said.

In the past month, 74 people with COVID-19 were hospitalized. Hospitals treated sixCOVID-19 patients in September, and 14 in October.