Adam Prudhomme
Editor
Overall the latest strain of Omicron COVID-19 variant may be weaker but it remains highly contagious and poses a high risk among those with underlying health conditions.
KFLA Public Health medical officer of health Dr. Piotr Oglaza spoke with local media about that topic on Thursday amid a week that saw five new deaths linked to the death reported, bringing the total of deaths in the region since the start of the pandemic to 55.
“The predominant feature of that sixth wave is that we’re dealing with a different pathogen,” said Oglaza. “We’re dealing still with COVID, but with a different variant that was highly transmissible. Even though there was overall on the population level there have been reports of maybe lower severity of Omicron, but still for those who are really frail, for those who are in that most vulnerable position, even slightly less severe virus might still be enough to really strain their health and sometimes result in outcomes such as death. Unfortunately this truly is the feature of a virus that spreads very easily that sometimes despite all the measures being followed diligently, it’s still impossible to contain and the best protection comes from vaccination.”
Oglaza did thank the KFLA community for posting one of the highest vaccination rates in the province, averaging about 10 per cent higher than the rest of the province for fourth dose among those 60 and older as well as 10 per cent higher for third dose.
“Because you have been diligent in keeping up to date and getting vaccinated for all those you are eligible for, we as a community are better protected from serious illness linked to this virus,” noted Oglaza. “For anyone if you haven’t already I encourage you to get your first, second or third dose. It’s not too late and individuals could still benefit from that protection that the vaccine provides.”
Oglaza says public health continues to track disease activity in the community through monitoring wastewater.
“The data has now normalized so it’s less prone to the fluctuations from events such as increase precipitation or times when there’s less rain water in the wastewater,” he said. “Now we see that with that continued decline, our levels are still very high. Until we are closer to the levels that we’ve seen prior to the start of the sixth wave or the fall of 2021 it will be an indicator that the disease activity continues in our region.”
The arrival of summer-like weather this week is a good sign things could start to turn towards more positive numbers. It was around this time last year the health unit would routinely post days of no new COVID-19 cases reported.
“We’ve seen in the past with any other respiratory pathogen that the warmer weather and the late spring, summer months are bringing a natural annual decline in any respiratory activity,” said Oglaza. “Certainly that hasn’t always been the case in previous years when we had a new variant around that time but we are now still dealing with the same Omicron even though there are some sub-variants that we are looking at as well. It’s the same pathogen and I do anticipate in the coming weeks that we will see a continued decline. COVID in the past has taught us to be humble and be very careful when making predictions so while this is my sincere hope that warmer weather is our really strong ally in what we’re trying to accomplish in decreasing the disease activity in the region, we still need to be vigilant. We can’t count on the warm weather alone to really help us get through this, that’s why I encourage people to still get immunized because even though there is warmer weather and less likelihood of infection with interactions outdoors, there’s still an individual risk of being exposed and being sick with COVID and the vaccination is the best way to reduce that risk of severe illness.”