Hamilton public health reported 30 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, the highest the city has recorded since June 11.
The city’s active cases effectively remained flat day over day, only increasing by one to 171. The seven-day average number of cases also remained steady over 24 hours checking in at 18.
More than 67 per cent of the city’s 171 active cases are among people under the age of 50, with about 19 per cent of cases among those aged 19 and under.
While Thursday saw a drop in the number of tests coming back positive — to 3.5 per cent as of June 17 from 5.3 last week — the province still designated the city as a COVID-19 hot spot since it has the fourth-highest number among Ontario’s 34 health units.
A specialist on public health and preventive medicine in Ontario says categorizing the city as a hot spot is likely a move precipitated by the arrival of significant volumes of vaccines to Canada — 9.5 million, plus an extra million of the Moderna vaccine from the U.S.
Dr. Barry Pakes with the University of Toronto believes the abundance of Pfizer and Moderna shots in the province offers an opportunity to get second shots into the arms of those in the top 10 regions where the bulk of active COVID cases reside.
“The fact that, you know, Hamilton and other regions are declared hot spots means that people will be able to get their second doses earlier,” Pakes said.
“And the real reason for that is because we have enough vaccine to give people.”
Hamilton health policy expert with McMaster University Dr. Ahmad Firas Khalid says the flow of mRNA vaccines into the country is a credit to the federal government which closed numerous deals with all the major players in vaccine development during the height of the pandemic.
“We are now seeing the outcomes of those contracts. We’re seeing a continuous increase in supply of the vaccine,” said Firas Khalid. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there will be a time in Canada where we have more vaccine that we know what to do with it.”
Hamilton updates vaccination schedule to accelerate second doses
With the city now one of three health units newly designated as a COVID-19 hot spot, the province will accelerate eligibility for Hamilton residents to book a second dose.
Public health revealed on Friday that individuals who received their first dose of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine (Pfizer or Moderna) on or before May 9 will be eligible to book or rebook their second dose appointment starting Monday at 8 a.m.
Meanwhile, those who received their first dose of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine on or before May 30, 2021 will be eligible to book or rebook their second dose appointment starting Wednesday morning.
People aged 18 and over who got an mRNA vaccine can start booking their second shots the week of June 28, but not sooner than 28 days after they received their first dose.
Appointments can be made via the provincial online booking system, at 104 participating pharmacies, or at clinics run by primary care partners.
As of Thursday, 71.8 per cent of adults in Hamilton have had at least a single shot of a COVID-19 vaccine with at least 443,000 doses administered.
Around 50 per cent of youth aged 12 to 17 years have received at least one dose as of June 17.
More than 31.2 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered across Canada with 12.1 million in Ontario, as of Friday.
Just over 75 per cent of adult Ontarians have received at least one dose with more than 20 per cent or 2.5 million adults fully vaccinated with two shots.
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