Hamilton’s Medical Officer of Health Dr. Elizabeth Richardson struck a note of optimism today, and even a momentary smile, as she opened her weekly public COVID update stating vaccination of residents in Hamilton’s long-term Care and retirement homes is underway.

The situation in the community remains bleak. There are now two more hospital outbreaks, a record number of people in hospital, a positivity rate more than double what is considered an unacceptable level, and concerns that the “UK variant” could gain a foothold to only make this worse.

Our Weekly Incident Rate has more than tripled in the past eight weeks, the Effective Reproductive number is well above 1, at 1.16. All indicators are concerning.

Indicators as presented to Hamilton City Council today

All the while, the Ontario Progressive Conservative government says they will be forced to act, eventually. The Premier is expected to announce measures to replace the present “mockdown” with measures to try to lower the spread of COVID in Ontario. A press conference and announcement is expected on Tuesday.

Local Numbers

Over the weekend, 15 more Hamiltonians were admitted to hospitals. There were 3 deaths reported during the weekend. The number of new daily cases decreased to 67 on Saturday, and 64 on Sunday.

This decreased the Weekly Incidence Rate to approximately 145.22 on Sunday, from a peak of 181.4 on Friday. The seven-day average COVID test positivity rate was 6.94% on December 31, 2020. ICES reported a 6.72% rate for January 2, 2021 in their weekly analysis.  (The Hamilton breakdown by postal code is here)

Today: Monday, January 11, 2021

Hamilton COVID Test Positivity Rate, Seven-Day Average, as of December 31, 2020. The seven-day average was 6.94% on December 31, 2020

New Cases: 146
Cumulative Total of Cases: 7469
New Deaths: 0
Cumulative Total of Deaths: 202

Weekly Incidence Rate: 154.1 (Based upon a population estimate of 589,000 for Hamilton)

Source: Ontario Open Data

Hamilton Health Sciences is reporting 80 COVID patients. HHS is no longer providing the number in Intensive Care.

St. Joseph’s is reporting 30 in-patients.

Hamilton Public Health reports 1490 active cases of COVID in Hamilton.

Hamilton COVID weekly incidence rate graph for Monday, January 1, 2020. The rate is approximately 154.1
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First published: January 11, 2020
Last updated: January 11, 2020
Author: Joey Coleman
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