GUELPH – A COVID-19 outbreak was declared at Guelph General Hospital on Aug. 23, after patients caught the virus during their stay in the hospital.
It’s the sixth COVID-19 outbreak at the hospital since July 30, and was declared in partnership Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health.
The Advertiser spoke with WDGPH associate medical officer of health Dr. Matthew Tenenbaum three days before the most recent outbreak was declared.
“COVID is less of an issue than it was a couple years ago, but still very much present,” Tenenbaum said.
He said part of the problem is that experts don’t yet “fully understand what kind of pattern it will fall into.
“We see that generally, COVID is more common and spreads more easily in fall and winter months,” he said, “but there are exceptions – its not entirely predictable.”
Wastewater testing
Until the end of July, Public Health officials were using wastewater testing results to track COVID-19 in the community, but as of August, this data is no longer being collected.
Wastewater testing began “during the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic response,” Tenenbaum said, and it evolved into a provincially-funded system with multiple sites across Ontario.
Tenenbaum said wastewater “was a very, very important source” of information, particularly as the pandemic progressed and PCR testing became less common.
“As [PCR] testing wound down COVID became managed more like influenza and other viruses,” he said, and wastewater provided “a very good estimate of what COVID was doing among folks not coming for testing.”
Over the years of analyzing wastewater results, Tenenbaum said public health officials developed a good understanding of how to use the data.
“Losing that source is a loss of good intelligence for us about what COVID could be doing,” he said.
Overall, Tenenbaum said COVID-19 rates looked similar this summer as they did in the summers of 2023 and 2022, with less of the virus showing up in wastewater testing than during winter months.
“We are not seeing other signs in surveillance that COVID is spiking right now,” he said, though “we are aware of anecdotes of people that are sick with COVID.”
Vaccine rollout
And as the weather gets cooler and people spend more time inside, “COVID risk is going to be increasing,” Tenenbaum said, so he advises that people get vaccinated and be “mindful of symptoms.”
Tenenbaum said there will be a new vaccine rollout starting in fall, for a COVID-19 vaccine that will be offered throughout this fall and winter, at which time public health “will encourage everyone to get an updated dose.”
The vaccine will be offered through clinics, primary care providers and health care partners, Tenenbaum said.
The rollout will focus on long-term care and retirement homes first, he said, and then will likely be offered to the wider community alongside flu vaccines in October and November.
“We know that some of the enthusiasm about getting the vaccine has waned,” he said, but “the more vaccine coverage we have, the better a shield our community will have against the virus, which can threaten our health care in fall and winter.”
He said avoiding long COVID should be one of the motivating factors “behind our effort to increase community immunizations, [as] vaccines seem to decrease the risk of long COVID.”
Moving forward, Tenenbaum expects COVID-19 vaccines to be offered annually in fall to everyone who is at least six months old.
People at higher risk, including seniors, people with pre-existing medical conditions, and people who are more likely to need to go to hospital from a COVID-19 infection will be offered a second annual dose every spring, he said.
“There’s going to be a lot more to come from us” regarding the vaccine rollout, Tenenbaum added.
