Hamilton reports 4 new COVID-19 deaths, expects 1-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine next week

The director of Hamilton’s emergency operations centre (EOC) says the arrival of the Johnson and Johnson (J&J) vaccine in Canada at the end of the week should be helpful in offsetting recent decreases the city has seen in its vaccine allocation in recent weeks.

Paul Johnson says challenges in acquiring the three current vaccines available to Canada have slowed the city’s distribution effort at a difficult time as public health attempts to reach 300,000 people that are eligible and will be eligible for a shot in the next few months.

“The really good news is for populations where it’s tough, a little bit tougher to book that second dose,” Johnson said.

“This will offer us a tool that will be really effective and efficient.”

About 300,000 doses of the much-anticipated single-dose J&J COVID-19 vaccine will be a part of Ontario’s two million doses expected next week from the federal government.

Flamborough-Glanbrook MPP Donna Skelly told Global News that the federal government has promised the Ford government large portions of the two million doses of vaccines arriving per week through May.

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Johnson says city clinics are currently running well below capacity, about 30 to 50 per cent, due to the lack of vaccines.

“We designed them to be at a rate where we could deliver about 10,000 doses to this community each and every day,” said Johnson.

“We’re nowhere near that at the moment. So we’re really hopeful that that will start to ramp up.”

As of Tuesday, public health estimates that 183,000 COVID-19 vaccines have been administered across all platforms in the city.

The bulk of the shots have come from the Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) clinic, which has given out more than 67,000 shots.

St. Joe’s clinic has administered close to 39,000, while about 26,000 came from mobile clinics, 24,000 from the First Ontario site, 21,000 from pharmacies and just over 6,000 from primary care doctors.

On Tuesday, Hamilton Public Health announced another expansion of the local vaccination program to include residents 40 and older in the five ‘hot spot’ postal codes – L9C, L8W, L8L, L8N and L9K.

Johnson says at the current rate, it will take the city more than two months to vaccinate the estimated 300,000 in Phase 2. The EOC boss is asking for patience from residents and asking them to get on wait-lists when they can.

“It’s not that we don’t have the strategy and a plan in place. It’s that we need that supply in order to make it happen fast,” said Johnson.

After six days of reporting daily COVID-19 cases under 150, Hamilton recorded 230 new infections on Wednesday and four more virus-related deaths.

The deaths involved a person in their 60s and three in their 80s. The city has now had 359 virus-related deaths since the pandemic began.

Two new outbreaks at a pair of workplaces were also revealed, MÖBEL Cabinetry and CHCH, each involving just a pair of cases among staffers according to public health.

Outbreaks at Hamilton General’s customer support services, Unified Engineering and the McDonald’s on Upper Wentworth were declared over on Tuesday. Combined the three surges involved 10 infected workers.

There are now 16 workplace outbreaks across the city involving over 120 total cases.

The largest involve Aryzta/Oakrun Farm Bakery on Fiddlers Green Road reporting 36 cases while National Steel Car shut down it’s operation on Friday after 27 employees came down with an infection.

As of Wednesday, Hamilton has 39 outbreaks involving over 240 total cases. Twenty-six involve the B.1.1.7 variant, first detected in the United Kingdom.

Another case of the B.1.351 the variant, first identified in South Africa, was discovered in the city. There are two recorded cases of that variant in Hamilton.

The city says there are 1,639 active cases as of April 28, up 81 from Tuesday.

Close to 70 per cent of the city’s active cases are among people under the age of 50. Just over 40 per cent of new cases are among residents under 30.

Around 11.3 per cent of all COVID-19 tests in the city are returning with positive results, up from 8.9 on Tuesday.

The city’s COVID-19 case rate per 100,000 population over seven days continued to drop from 186 as of Monday to 181 as of April 27.

The reproductive rate in Hamilton is at 1.09, suggesting the virus is still spreading in the community.

As of Tuesday, Hamilton hospitals are treating 161 COVID-19 patients. There are 115 COVID-19 patients at HHS with 49 in intensive care. St. Joe’s says it has 46 total patients.

The province says 2,336 people are in hospitals across Ontario with COVID-19, 875 in intensive care units and 589 patients in ICUs on a ventilator.

Ontario’s new COVID-19 cases were up slightly day over day from 3,265 reported on Tuesday to 3,480 on Wednesday.

Most public health units reported fewer than 200 new cases in the provincial report, except for Toronto (961), Peel (589), York (290), Durham (221) and Hamilton.