Hamilton public health reported some record high daily vaccination rates last week as the city works to avoid a potential swell of COVID-19 cases and a fourth wave in the pandemic this summer.
In an update on Monday, the city’s medical officer of health revealed that over 8000 doses that were administered each day over three days in the latter half of last week.
The clinic at First Ontario Centre led the way with record highs June 25 and 26 administering over 2,550 doses over the two days.
Dr. Elizabeth Richardson says daily averages among the city’s clinics is now somewhere around 7,000 shots a day.
“We’re sitting at about 2,300 doses a day at First Ontario, 1,600 at St. Joe’s, 1,100 at Hamilton Health Sciences and our new ArcelorMittal Dofasco Clinic sitting at 550 doses per day on average,” Richardson said.
Last week, vaccine eligibility for second doses expanded to include those who got a first dose before May 30.
Public health estimated that about 102,000 people were eligible for shots with the change but could only drop about 45,000 appointments in the booking system for last week.
Richardson says the city is catching up on availability, revealing that another 8,000 appointments were entered on Monday and more are coming in the next few days.
As of the weekend, Hamilton surpassed the half-million mark in COVID-19 vaccinations revealing that more than 520,000 doses have been administered through Hamilton clinics and pharmacies.
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The number represents about 73 per cent of the city’s adult population and 58 per cent of youth aged 12 to 17.
More than 14 million total COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered in Ontario as of Sunday.
There are more than 4.3 million people are fully vaccinated with two doses, which equals 35.4 per cent of the adult population in the province.
Over 36 million total doses have been administered in Canada to date, with 67.19 per cent of people having had at least one dose and 27 per cent now fully vaccinated.
Richardson says one of the priorities in the vaccination program going forward is to target the some 26 per cent of Hamiltonians that haven’t their first dose.
“The reason for those reduced rates is rooted in the social determinants of health, and so these are long standing inequities that aren’t going to be addressed by the vaccination program alone,” Richardson said.
The MOH hopes the deployment of vaccine ambassadors and special ‘pop-up’ clinics arranged in areas of the city where vaccination rates are low will aid in a venture to get shots in the arms of every resident.
Hamilton reports 12 new COVID-19 cases, only one reported outbreak
Hamilton reported 12 new COVID-19 cases on Monday and a slight drop in the city’s seven-day average case rate since Friday from 16 to 14.
As of Monday, the city has 121 active cases with more than 74 per cent of the occurrences among people under the age of 50, with about 25 per cent of cases among those aged 19 and under.
On Friday, the city’s weekly reproductive number — representing the average number of people an infected person is passing COVID-19 on to — moved from 0.64 to 0.97.
The number is higher than the provincial average, last reported on Tuesday at 0.78.
As of Monday, the city’s test positivity rate was at 2.2 per cent, slightly higher than the province’s daily number which checked in at 1.8 per cent.
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Last week, Ontario’s average test positivity rate was 2.5 per cent.
Hamilton has just one outbreak as of Monday at the Meadowlands Preschool & Daycare on the west Mountain involving two total cases.
As of June 28, Ontario reported 218 people in hospitals with COVID-19 (up 15 from the previous day). There are 287 patients in intensive care units (ICU), down by two day over day.
The number of COVID-19 patients in local hospitals combined is 31 cases at Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) and St. Joe’s.
HHS has 18 COVID-19 patients as of Monday with seven in ICUs. St. Joe’s has 13 COVID-19 cases, 12 in ICUs.
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