Public health reports 10,000 COVID-19 cases in January but that's only a fraction of them

There were 347 new COVID-19 cases reported on Thursday by Region of Waterloo Public Health, bringing the community to a grim milestone of more than 10,000 new cases reported in a single month.

The cases this month make up 28 per cent of all COVID-19 cases reported in Waterloo region since March 2020, which as of Thursday was 36,137.

But the 10,161 cases reported so far in January are just a fraction of the true number of cases, as not everyone is eligible to be tested for the virus.

"Our number of cases is no longer a good metric," Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang, the region's medical officer of health, told regional councillors during a board of health meeting Wednesday evening.

Wang urged people to get vaccinated and follow public health guidance to wear masks and avoid social gatherings to curb spread of the virus.

Wang also said she's watching two indicators to get a sense of the COVID-19 situation in the region: wastewater and percent positivity of people being tested.

Recently, both have shown early signs of a possible plateau, but Wang warned it's too early to say for certain that the Omicron wave is receding and the "utmost caution" must be used when looking at the data.

The wastewater dashboard, which is also updated on Thursdays, reported that the rapid increase of infection indicators seen since mid-December "has plateaued" at all sites.

Wang said she'd like a few more days to look at the numbers to confirm a trend, but the test positivity appears to be going down, meaning fewer people who are being tested are getting back a positive result for COVID-19.

"That's quite recent but it adds to the wastewater trend and there's also the fact that we have a very, very high number of outbreaks in high risk settings and in hospitals but the speed at which new outbreaks are being declared has also started to slow," Wang said.

148 people in hospital

There were no new COVID-related deaths reported on Thursday.

There were 148 people in the region's three hospitals with COVID-19. There were 27 people in the intensive care unit. The region notes people in the ICU may no longer be infectious with the virus but they do require ongoing care.

Wang warned that the pressure on hospitals is likely to continue for several weeks, even as the number of infections start to go down.

There were 75 active outbreaks in the region with 39 of those outbreaks in long-term care or retirement homes. There were 27 outbreaks in congregate settings and nine in the region's hospitals. (Note: The following table has four pages of data.)

First in-school vaccine clinic

The region's vaccination dashboard showed 77.44 per cent of all residents in the region have received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. For children age 5 to 11, that number is 9.5 per cent. 

Vickie Murray, who leads the region's vaccine rollout, said they have done a trial run of an in-school vaccine clinic and are planning more for next week. Parents at the schools where clinics will be held have been given information about the clinic and must give permission for their child to be vaccinated during the school day.

Murray said the region will also plan for more after-school clinics and other opportunities to take the vaccine out to people.

"Our goal is to provide easy opportunities to get children vaccinated and to provide the information parents need to get their children vaccinated," she said.

Murray also said walk-in appointments for all ages and all doses are now available at the Pinebush vaccine clinic in Cambridge as capacity to provide vaccines outstrips demand.