172 COVID-19 cases reported in Waterloo region as people urged to 'dramatically reduce' social contacts

Waterloo region saw 172 new COVID-19 cases reported on Tuesday. The increase in the daily case count comes as the region's medical officer of health Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang says people need to "dramatically reduce" their social contacts immediately. 

There were 883 active cases on the region's dashboard, which also reported 33 cases have been confirmed to have the Omicron variant.

There were 20 people listed as being in the region's three hospitals infectious with the virus. There were six people in the intensive care unit (ICU). The region noted people in ICU may no longer be infectious but do require ongoing care.

There were no new deaths reported Tuesday.

There were 135 cases reported on Monday.

'This is a time of uncertainty'

Wang reminded residents they should continue to follow public health measures this holiday season to combat the spread of the Omicron variant.

"This is a time of uncertainty, and obviously it's not what we wanted to happen," Wang told CBC K-W's The Morning Edition. 

"There are things that we can do to best protect ourselves and those whom we love, and one is to reduce your social contacts. This is really important now as well as the holidays.

"Even, you know, if you are scheduled to get a third dose, then you have to do that. We as a community have to dramatically reduce our social contacts to give us more time for the vaccine boosters to take effect," Wang added.

Wang said based on what's known so far, Omicron spreads eight times faster than Delta. 

In light of the rate of spread, she said "a lot of people will become infected," and Omicron is also spreading among those who are vaccinated. 

"However, those who are vaccinated, even if it's just with two doses, are much better protected still against severe outcomes of infection than those who are still unvaccinated," Wang said. 

"So, having had two doses does still give you a significant amount of protection against severe outcomes. But because Omicron is so transmissible, even among those who are vaccinated, it will infect a lot of people, and so that's a concern, especially for the holiday season, as people gather."

LISTEN | Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang talks Omicron, holiday gatherings and what people in Waterloo region need to do right now to curb spread of COVID-19.

Hospitals 'preparing for potential surges'

Wang said while it's not yet known what the impact of this latest wave of the pandemic will be on the region's hospitals, they are "preparing for potential surges."

"With something that is a lot more transmissible, even if a small fraction of the people who become infected develop serious outcomes, because there's many more people that are infected, it could lead to a significant number in total that have severe outcomes and that would mean hospital care," she said. 

Wang said hospitals could be overwhelmed in the next few weeks because hospitalizations from COVID-19 generally happen a week or two after the initial rise in cases.

She reiterated that this can all be prevented if people reduce their contacts with others going forward.

18 active outbreaks

There were 18 outbreaks in the region on Tuesday.

There was an outbreak at Lanark Heights long-term care home in Kitchener linked to 15 cases: eight in staff members and seven "non-staff" cases. There was also one death associated with this outbreak.

Schools accounted for 10 outbreaks:

• A new outbreak at St. Luke Catholic School in Waterloo with two cases.
• A private school with four cases.
• St. Vincent De Paul Catholic Elementary School in Cambridge with nine cases over multiple cohorts.
• Saint John Paul II Catholic Elementary School in Kitchener with nine cases.
• Tait Street Public School in Cambridge with eight cases.
• St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Elementary School in Elmira with four cases.
• St. Augustine Catholic School in Cambridge with four cases.
• St. Mary's High School in Kitchener with four cases.
• Monsignor Doyle Catholic Secondary School in Cambridge with three cases.
• St. Paul Catholic Elementary School in Kitchener with two cases.

There were three hockey-related outbreaks:

• Cambridge Minor Hockey with eight cases.
• Waterloo Minor Hockey with five cases.
• An unnamed hockey-related outbreak with two cases.

Two outbreaks were declared over on Monday: One with 26 cases connected to the Cambridge Roadrunners Girls Hockey Association and an outbreak of 19 cases connected to Hespeler Minor Hockey.

The other outbreaks were:

• Columbus Conference Centre in Waterloo with five cases.
• An automobile sales and service workplace with four cases.
• A manufacturing workplace with three cases.
• An office with two cases.

Vaccination update

The region's vaccination dashboard showed 75.69 per cent of all residents have received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. Just under 40 per cent of children aged five to 11 have received the first dose of the vaccine.

The region's vaccination dashboard does not show the percentage of people in the region who have received third doses, but does list third doses by age categories. It shows 55.6 per cent of people aged 80 and over, for example, have a third dose while 3.5 per cent of people aged 18 to 29 have a third dose.

The region reported on Twitter that there are more than 64,150 appointments booked at regional vaccination clinics between Tuesday and February 6.

Approximately 12,000 of those appointments have been booked since Monday afternoon.