5 COVID-related deaths reported in Waterloo region on Monday

There were five deaths of people with COVID-19 reported by Region of Waterloo Public Health on Monday.

The people were:

• One woman in her 90s.
• Two men in their 90s.
• One man in his 70s.
• One man in his 60s.

The region's medical officer of health Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang offered the family and friends of the individuals her "deep sympathy" in a statement.

There were 146 people listed as being in the region's three hospitals with the virus. There were 25 people in the intensive care unit. The region noted people in the ICU may not longer be infectious with COVID-19 but they do require ongoing, specialized care.

Local hospital officials say they've had to return to "hallway medicine" and use non-traditional spaces like day surgery beds to care for people sick with COVID-19.

The region reported 604 cases of COVID-19 between Friday and Monday's update, but that number is considered to be a fraction of the actual case numbers as not everyone with symptoms is eligible to be tested to confirm a diagnosis.

There were 78 active outbreaks in the region. Of those:

• 30 were in congregate settings, including one in the shelter system with 66 cases.
• 11 were in regional hospitals.
• 37 were in long-term care and retirement homes.

(Note: The above table has four pages of data.)

The region's vaccination dashboard showed 77.9per cent of all residents in the community have two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Meanwhile, the head of Ontario's COVID-19 science advisory table is calling on the province to change the definition of the term "fully vaccinated" from two to three doses.

The region does not list the percentage of people with third doses, but does provide a graph with an age breakdown. It shows, for example, that nearly 87 per cent of people aged 80 and older have a third dose while 33.29 per cent of people aged 18 to 29 have received a third dose.

It also shows a little more than 52 per cent of children aged five to 11 have their first dose of the vaccine while 13.7 per cent in that age group have a second dose.