Mask up and get vaccinated because things are going to get worse in January: Etches
Rates of respiratory illness already high in the city going into the holiday season
Ottawa's medical officer of health expects the respiratory virus situation in the city to get worse after the holidays.
In her end of year briefing to the board of health, Dr. Vera Etches said Ottawa is seeing a high rate of respiratory viruses heading into a busy time for families to gather.
"It's not easy to hear this but we expect things to get worse after the holidays," Etches said.
"Because so many people gather indoors, aren't wearing masks."
Etches said there are things people can do now including, masking in crowded public places like grocery stores, airports, and malls and staying home when sick to stop the spread of respiratory viruses.
More children need to be vaccinated
But Etches stressed that more people still need to get vaccinated for the flu and COVID-19, especially children.
"I want to speak to parents because we know older adults are bearing the brunt of the worst outcomes. We're still seeing deaths from COVID. And when we work with our children to help them be vaccinated, to wear masks, when we're vaccinated, we do make a difference for people who are at greatest risk," Etches said.
Marie-Claude Turcotte, a program manager at Ottawa Public Health, said so far pharmacies have given out 247,000 flu vaccines and Ottawa Public Health clinics have given out around 11,000. She said a little over 200,000 doses have been distributed to primary care providers but the data of how many are used won't be known until the end of the season.
"Those numbers are comparable to other years in terms of overall uptake," she said. "What we're missing, as Dr. Etches mentioned, is a breakdown in terms of ages and who is actually coming to get those vaccines."
But Etches said they already know that more children can get vaccinated for the flu.
"There is no question that more people can benefit from an influenza vaccine than have come forward to get it, especially younger age groups," she said.
Etches said in past years, flu vaccine uptake in children has been low and with so many children ending up in CHEO with the flu right now, they want to see more of them vaccinated.
Overstretched health-care system preparing
January is typically a bad season for respiratory viruses but Etches said this year staffing issues at hospitals could stretch an already overwhelmed health-care system.
"It's not easy to find more health-care workers. So even though they can create more beds and create more capacity in maybe non-traditional places it really is the pressure from the staffing needed that is a concern," she said.
The advice for reducing spread is the same for all three respiratory viruses that are currently circulating in the city. The city's wastewater signal showed they are all high, including COVID-19 which is currently rising. The Omicron subvariant BQ1.1 has been found in Ottawa's wastewater and is starting to take over, similar to global trends.
Etches said it's still too early to say what that will mean for rates of severe illness and hospitalization.
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