Hamilton reports 2 new COVID-19 deaths, HHS says drop in ICU cases continues to be slow

Staff at one of Hamilton’s hospitals are saying despite recent drops in daily COVID-19 case numbers and hospitalizations from the virus, the number of those needing treatment from an intensive care unit (ICU) is not dropping as fast.

During an epidemiology update from a Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) town hall on Thursday, the director of infection prevention and control revealed a rapid decrease in ward patients week over week but a much slower decline with the sickest patients.

“We see a rapid, relatively rapid decrease in number of ward patients, but the ICU piece, the piece that’s really putting a strain on to our system, continues to decrease only very slowly,” Dr. Dominik Mertz told staff.

President and CEO Rob MacIsaac said the hospital is looking to a return of regular services put on hold due to the third wave, however, continuing pressures on critical care beds for patients with COVID-19 are a concern as occupancy is still high.

“As the pandemic continues to throw us curveballs, the resumption of services and return of redeployed staff needs to be done carefully and cautiously,” said MacIsaac.

The HHS boss said of particular concern are patients receiving ECMO treatment — or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation —  a form of life support that uses a pump to circulate blood through a machine that replaces the work of someone’s lungs and, in some cases, their heart.

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“Typically, we might have one or two patients on that ECMO at any given time, when there isn’t a pandemic,” MacIsaac said.

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“During the pandemic, we’ve had up to 10 patients receiving this level of care at the general and we are being asked to prepare to do even more than that in coming days.”

EVP and chief operating officer Sharon Pierson said the University Health Network in Toronto, the hub for the program in Ontario, has exhausted its resources and that HHS and partners in London are being asked to increase capacity.

“It’s a very focused program with only four sites offering the service regionally and very limited expertise in the province to support that,” Pierson said.

HHS has also been told by the province to maintain its capacity for COVID-19 patients as more transfers from Manitoba continue to arrive.

Since May 18, there have been 26 ICU patients sent to 11 different Ontario hospitals (Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Ottawa, Sudbury, London, Windsor, St. Elgin, North Bay, Peterborough and Woodstock and Owen Sound) as the prairie province continues to grapple with capacity issues.

“I know there’s work underway to provide resources directly to the hospitals there, and I would imagine it’ll be a balance between sending them resources and having to transfer patients, ” said Pierson.

As of Friday, HHS facilities have 44 total COVID patients with 21 occupying ICU beds.

St. Joe’s reported 32 patients, 22 of them in an ICU.

The ICU occupancy rate at St. Joe’s is now at 115 per cent as of May 28, while HHS facilities are at 117 per cent.

Hamilton reported 77 new COVID-19 cases on Friday and two more virus-related deaths.

Public health says the deceased were two people in their 80s with one connected to an outbreak at St. Peter’s Hospital in central Hamilton.

The HHS hospital now has three deaths connected with a surge that began on April 30 involving 11 cases among eight patients and three staff.

There are two ongoing outbreaks at hospitals in the city with another 22 cases and five deaths tied to the Juravinski’s F4 unit.

The city has now recorded 383 COVID-19 deaths since the pandemic began.

A large outbreak at a downtown Hamilton high-rise apartment is now over. The surge at Rebecca Towers, which accounted for 110 total COVID-19 cases and one death, ended after 25 days.

Just two blocks away, the Wellington Place apartments also saw its outbreak declared over on Thursday. There were 45 total cases in that occurrence over after 18 days.

Three other outbreaks at Paramount Landscaping, Latitude Air Ambulance at the airport and the Hatts Off group home on Delaware Avenue were also closed on Thursday.

The city has 34 active outbreaks involving over 300 cases as of Friday.

Hamilton’s reproductive number — the average number of people an infected person is passing COVID-19 on to — was updated by public health on Friday and it dropped week over week from 1.03 to 0.68.

The city’s seven-day moving average of cases also dropped day over day from 79 to 71.

The percentage of Hamilton tests returning from Ontario labs as positive for COVID-19 is 8.3 per cent, above the province’s last reported daily number, 3.6 per cent, on May 28.

The city’s active cases slid by 54 from 691 on Thursday to 637 on Friday.

—With files from Brittany Greenslade