Health officials advise cautious September, predicting substantial fourth wave of COVID-19

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Eighteen months into the pandemic, Ottawa residents are once again being warned it could be a rough fall if they don’t take steps to limit spread of COVID-19. Those steps include increasing vaccination rates, but also reducing close contacts.

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On Thursday, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Vera Etches confirmed that, like the rest of Ontario, Ottawa is in a fourth wave of the pandemic, driven by the highly contagious Delta variant. More people have tested positive for COVID-19 in recent days in Ottawa, test positivity rates are higher than they have been in months and hospitalizations have gone up. But Etches says she believes Ottawa can avoid further lockdowns.

“We are aiming to keep a functioning health system and to avoid the societal disruptions of schools closing or a lockdown,” she said, “so approaching September with caution is key.”

Etches said she wais optimistic that Ottawa residents, as they did last fall, could help keep COVID-19 rates down by wearing masks and limiting contacts. And this year, unlike last, vaccines are available and vaccination rates in the city are high, proving effective against hospitalization and serious infections. But Etches acknowledged the release of modelling by Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table this week warning about a substantial fourth wave this fall “does give us pause”.

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The Science Advisory Table quietly released modelling late Wednesday predicting Ontario could see case counts in October higher than in the third wave, with a worst-case scenario of as many as 9,000 cases a day.

“Like other jurisdictions, Ontario is in the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our models, federal models and models in other jurisdictions predict a substantial fourth wave,” the Science Advisory Table wrote. “The fourth wave will affect all age groups with the potential to exceed ICU capacity.”

And, while vaccination is key to reducing transmission, severe illness and death from COVID-19, health officials say Ontario residents will also have to limit the number of people they are in contact with if they want to reduce the potentially devastating impact of the fourth wave this fall.

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Vaccination rates would have to be higher than 85 per cent of people over 12 — 79 per cent of people over 12 in Ottawa are currently fully vaccinated — to avoid further lockdowns during the fourth wave. Ottawa Public Health’s goal is 90 per cent. Etches says it is unlikely Ottawa will reach that level until around mid-October, which could be too late to avoid the possible scenario of a resurgence of high case counts by the end of September without other measures.

In its modelling, the Science Advisory Table said Ontario residents needed to reduce close contacts to about 70 per cent of pre-pandemic levels until vaccination rates were high enough to protect the population.

That message to reduce contacts could be a tough sell at a time when children are returning to school in person, Ontario’s opening strategy allows gatherings of 100 people outdoors and 25 people indoors, vaccine certificates will allow indoor dining and other “high-risk” indoor activities for people who are fully vaccinated and cooler weather will drive more people indoors. Plus, pandemic fatigue is growing.

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Still, Etches says she is hopeful heading into the second autumn of the pandemic, in part because Ottawa residents bucked provincial trends last fall and kept case counts relatively low by following public health measures.

“While the latest COVID numbers and modelling are concerning, I am still hopeful because we have beat the odds before.”

She said it was crucial that adults do everything they could to protect children so that schools could remain open.

On Thursday, there were signs that the vaccine certificate program announced by the provincial government was helping to encourage more people to get vaccinated, as it has in other jurisdictions.

Minister of Health Christine Elliott tweeted that bookings on the provincial system more than doubled on Wednesday, the day the certificates were announced, and thousands of more people had booked by midday Thursday.

Etches also said Ottawa Public Health was seeing a “noticeable increase in people seeking vaccination” after the vaccine certificates announcement.

Ontario reported 865 new cases on Thursday, the highest number since early June. Ottawa reported 39 new cases, giving it 237 active cases overall.