Hamilton Public Health Services prioritizing focus on COVID-19 outbreaks in high-risk settings

HAMILTON, ON – Effective today, Hamilton Public Health Services is prioritizing its staffing resources to manage COVID-19 outbreaks in high-risk settings to protect community members’ most vulnerable to severe outcomes of COVID-19, along with front-line healthcare workers, and other front-line workers, such as educators, correctional officers and non-clinical staff in local healthcare settings. The emergence of the highly-transmissible Omicron variant has led to a large surge in the number of community members testing positive for COVID-19 in Hamilton which has overwhelmed Hamilton Public Health Services’ ability to provide outbreak management in all settings.

High-risk settings in Hamilton, include hospitals, and complex continuing care facilities or acute care facilities; congregate settings (long-term care homes, retirement homes, shelters, supportive housing, correctional institution); childcare centres; and schools. These settings will continue to be provided with infection prevention and control guidance by Hamilton Public Health Services staff and declared outbreaks will be published on the City of Hamilton’s Status of Cases dashboard.

This change to focus staffing resources on high-risk settings means that Hamilton Public Health Services will no longer be declaring new outbreaks associated with workplaces or community settings. We are asking businesses, organizations and individuals to take measures to slow transmission of COVID-19 in these settings, and public health recommendations to support these efforts can be found here: www.hamilton.ca/coronavirus/covid-19-in-the-workplace. Hamilton Public Health Services strongly recommends local workplaces, sports teams and other non-high-risk community settings with five or more confirmed cases of COVID-19 consider discontinuing operations for a period of 10 days to break transmission in the setting. This difficult, but necessary action, will help reduce the spread of the highly-transmissible Omicron variant of concern, and protect strained local healthcare capacity and Hamilton’s most vulnerable. As part of this shift of focus for COVID-19 outbreak management to protect Hamilton’s most vulnerable, the Class Order under Section 22 of the Health Protection and Promotion Act related to workplaces issued on May 3, 2021 has been rescinded as of December 23, 2021.

The best way community members can prevent the spread of COVID-19 and the highly-transmissible Omicron variant of concern is to get fully vaccinated, and when eligible, get a third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, keep their guards up by following the well-established public health measures including wearing a tight-fitting mask properly, maintaining physical distance, limiting their contacts and size of social gatherings, and staying home when they’re unwell.

Quick Facts

• The weekly incidence rate of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 in Hamilton has more than doubled since December 15, 2021 and currently stands at 194—a rate not seen since the pandemic’s third wave in April 2021.
• On April 7, 2021 the Ontario Ministry of Health released an updated COVID-19 Directive #3 to long-term care homes. In this directive, a suspect outbreak in a home is defined as one single lab-confirmed COVID-19 case in a resident. A confirmed outbreak in a home is defined as two or more lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases in residents and/or staff (or other visitors) in a home with an epidemiological link, within a 14-day period, where at least one case could have reasonably acquired their infection in the home.
• An outbreak in a school or child care setting is defined as two or more lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases in students and/or staff or other visitors with an epidemiological link, within a 14-day period, where at least one case could have reasonably acquired their infection in this type of setting.
• Existing active outbreaks in non high-risk settings will remain on the City of Hamilton’s Status of Cases dashboard until declared over.
• Effective Sunday, December 19th at 12:01 a.m., the Ontario government introduced new public health measures for individuals and community settings to reduce the spread of the Omicron variant of concern.
• As per Ontario Government guidelines, appointments for COVID-19 testing must be made in advance for all local COVID-19 testing sites. No walk-ins will be permitted at any Hamilton COVID-19 testing facility. Appointments can be made online by visiting: www.HamiltonCovidTest.ca. For more information on who is eligible for COVID-19 testing, community members can visit: www.hamilton.ca/covidtesting.
• For those experiencing COVID-19 symptoms or are a close contact of a COVID-positive individual, please follow public health guidelines to isolate in order to limit the spread of COVID-19 and the highly-transmissible Omicron variant

Additional Resources

• www.hamilton.ca/coronavirus
• https://covid-19.ontario.ca
• Public Health Services’ COVID-19 Hotline: 905-974-9848 or [email protected]