omicron will be 'a very hot and very intense fire,' doctor says
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quebec reported its highest single-day count of new covid-19 cases on sunday since the start of the pandemic — 3,846 — and hospitalizations, now at their highest rate since may, continue to rise.
the positivity rate — the percentage of tests performed that are positive for covid-19 — was 9.9 per cent on sunday, and probably higher in montreal and laval, said dr. matthew oughton, an attending physician in the infectious disease division at the jewish general hospital and an assistant professor of medicine at mcgill university. barely three weeks ago, it was at three per cent.
“this is almost certainly being driven by omicron,” he said. the variant is rapidly transmissible, he said, and “it seems to be able to double the number of cases in as little as two days, which is stunning.”
quebec premier françois legault said in a facebook post on saturday in which he called on quebecers to obey health directives that come into effect monday that “the omicron variant is advancing at breakneck speed. it’s hard to imagine. something so overwhelming has never been seen since the start of the pandemic.”
when oughton learned late thursday of legault’s impending announcement, “i was hopeful that it was a prelude to restrictions being enacted immediately.”
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the effect of imposing restrictions then would have been four times greater than waiting until monday, he said.
arguably, some needed time to adjust to the restrictions, “but if you open the door and see fire at your doorstep, it’s not the time to say, ‘i have to go watch a 30-minute youtube video on how to fight a fire.'”
“it is going to be a very hot and very intense fire — and it’s unfortunate that it is happening during the holiday period,” he said. “you would think that, if people placed a high value on seeing family and friends, they would keep themselves as safe as possible until that time.”
yet some seem to have taken the announcement about the restrictions as “ok, so we can whoop it up until then,” oughton said. some bars and clubs in montreal and quebec city reportedly held “last dance,” “end of the universe” and early new year’s eve parties over the weekend — events at which few wore masks or practised social distancing.
these events “unfortunately completely missed the point” of the restrictions, he said.
dr. donald vinh, an infectious-disease specialist and medical microbiologist at the mcgill university health centre, said sunday that “it is disappointing to hear that, when the premier and the minister of health announce that we have to restrict social measures because things are out of control, it doesn’t occur to those members of the public to be responsible or use common sense, and that they decided to frolic carelessly. this will only lead to more transmission and more hospitalizations in the next few weeks, making the situation worse.”
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the omicron variant was first reported to the world health organization by south africa on nov. 24 — and three weeks later, 35 to 50 per cent of covid-19 samples in quebec are omicron.
“now we are in the unfortunate situation of a dual surge but, if things don’t get under control, probably in the next few weeks omicron will be on a par with delta in terms of hospitalization and, shortly afterwards, will become the dominant strain,” vinh said.
depending on the hospital, up to half of quebecers hospitalized with covid-19 are doubly vaccinated. nearly 45 per cent of covid-19 cases reported on the weekend were in quebecers ages 20 to 49.
“covid is not a disease only of the elderly and people who are inadequately vaccinated,” vinh said. “young people and people who are doubly vaccinated are still at risk of getting infected and being hospitalized, so seeing images on social media of people in dance clubs is perplexing.”
what the high positivity rate means is that “there are a lot of community cases and that means there is a lot of community transmission,” vinh said. “these are indicators that we are in the process of losing control.”
there is, however, a silver lining: the solution is the same as in earlier waves: rolling out vaccinations quickly to keep people from getting disease severe enough to require hospital admission, he said, and wearing masks: with omicron much more contagious than previous variants, ordinary surgical masks are less effective, he said: aerosol-filtering masks such as n-95 and kn-95 masks are better, as are level 3 surgical masks. people should not depend on cloth masks for protection from the delta or omicron variants, he said.
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