Ontario could see up to 600 ICU admissions during 6th wave of COVID-19: Moore

Ontario could see up to 600 intensive care unit admissions during the sixth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the province’s top doctor said.

Moore made the comments during a press conference on Monday, but said Ontario Health has assured him that the province’s hospitals have the capacity to “care for all Ontarians.”

“I’ll be straightforward,” he said. “It’s anticipated that we could have as high as 600 people back in the intensive care unit at the peak of this, but they have assured us that we can provide care to those individuals.”

On May 1, 2021, the province reported 900 people were receiving care in an intensive care unit, marking the highest number of ICU admissions since the pandemic began.

The ICU admissions peaked just weeks before the first COVID-19 vaccine dose eligibility was expanded to everyone 18 and older in the province.

Hospital admissions peaked during the fifth wave of the pandemic on Jan. 25, 2022, at 626, despite over 11.6 million members of the public having received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Speaking to reporters Monday, Moore said he is “concerned about health care workers,” adding that absences due to illness are “increasing.”

“Clearly, we have to monitor that,” he said.

“Ontario Health is monitoring that very closely for us. We’re looking at the safest plans of returning workers at day five with negative testing — either through RAT or PCR — if their symptoms have completely resolved, but I do agree that’s an ongoing persistent issue.”

He said he hopes all healthcare workers have maintained the “highest level of immunization that they can,” and are “maintaining masking when they’re in public spaces as well, because they’re so essential to us.”

Moore’s comments come just days after the University Health Network (UHN) reported staffing “challenges” amid the sixth wave.

The UHN told Global News in a statement last week that the staffing challenge is “not related to admitted patients but rather to the fact that we are seeing more staff reporting either that they are positive for the virus or have a household member who is positive.”

The UHN encompasses Princess Margaret, Toronto General and Toronto Western hospitals and the five sites of Toronto Rehab.

The UHN said that it is seeing a seven-day rolling average that almost 40 per cent of the staff who are reporting symptoms to Health Services are positive for COVID-19.

“With staff ill or in quarantine because of illness in the household, staffing is a challenge in some areas,” the statement read.

By the numbers

Moore said it’s “clear” that Ontario is in the sixth wave of the pandemic, which is being “driven by the BA.2 variant.”

“In the last few weeks, we have seen an increase in the per cent positivity and upward trend in wastewater surveillance and a rise in hospitalizations,” he said. “These trends are likely to continue for the next several weeks.”

Moore said it is “strongly recommended” that masks be worn in public spaces, that those who are sick stay home and isolate, and that people receive every COVID-19 vaccine dose available to them.

On Monday, the province released new data which said 1,090 people are now in hospital with COVID-19. Some 184 are currently receiving care in an ICU.

Ontario also reported 2,401 new lab-confirmed cases of the virus for a total of 1,198,319. However, experts have cautioned that due to limited access to PCR testing, that is likely an underestimate.

Last week, the director of Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, Dr. Peter Juni, said the province is likely only reporting “five per cent or less” of its actual case count.

He said the province is now seeing around 100,000 to 120,000 new COVID-19 cases per day.

Both Ontario Premier Doug Ford and the province’s health minister, Christine Elliott, have said that the rise in cases was expected as some of the COVID-19 restrictions were lifted.

However, the leaders have maintained that the province is equipped to deal with the spike in infections.