Have we hit the peak? Experts say we should still be cautious in Omicron wave

There are some encouraging signs, but it may still be too early to say if we have passed the peak of infections during this surge of COVID-19 cases fueled by the Omicron variant.

In some other jurisdictions, it appears the worst may be behind them and that is why some restrictions are being loosened.

Ontario and Quebec are walking back some measures, and officials in the United Kingdom have also called off some rules such as mandatory masking in schools.

Related article:

Restaurants, gyms to reopen Jan. 31 as Ford announces gradual easing of COVID restrictions

When it comes to Alberta, hospitalizations did not go up very sharply between Tuesday and Wednesday this week and active cases have been falling steadily. There is, however, a caveat to that as fewer people are getting PCR tests and people are increasingly relying on rapid tests or simply just staying home if they have any of the typical COVID-19 symptoms.

Data from wastewater also indicates we may be seeing a decline in the major centres, with rates falling over the past week.

But at this point, experts say we shouldn’t start celebrating that we may be through the worst of it.

“We’re pretty much the same as Ontario in terms of (hospital) admissions per capita, but much behind that of Quebec. So, we can probably expect to go up from where we are, hopefully not up to where they are in the United States or France,” said infectious diseases physician Dr. Dan Gregson.

“In the U.K., they seem to have plateaued. But they’re plateaued, they’re sort of flat. It’s still going to be a long, hard few weeks for us in the hospitals if we are seeing admissions at this level over a long period of time.”

The stress on the health care system is extremely important to consider, and it remains hard to say if there will be more impacts in terms of cancelled surgeries or other disruptions in hospitals as we have surpassed previous records of hospitalizations throughout the pandemic. One silver lining is that we have seen fewer people in intensive care units.

Gregson said we can credit vaccinations for preventing this from being even worse, because the sharp rise in overall cases hasn’t quite translated into a disaster situation in hospitals.

“We’re seeing very low admission rates in the vaccinated population,” he said. “The vaccines, despite the fact they’re not as good at preventing transmission from nose to nose, they are very good at preventing people from requiring health care.”

The province also moved to approve fourth dose vaccinations for the most at-risk populations in Alberta, and Gregson said it is still too early to roll them out for the wider population as the booster shots seem to be working well for most people.

Wastewater data has been an emerging piece of evidence to show what direction we are heading in, but again even as the rates of the virus in wastewater show signs of slowing we have to wait a little bit to determine if this is a sustained improvement.

Read more: 

• Immunocompromised Albertans to be made eligible for fourth COVID vaccine

• ‘It’s going off the charts’: Wastewater testing reflecting surge of COVID-19 cases

• Active COVID infections decline for second straight day in Alberta

“To be confident that it indeed is moving in the right direction, we would want to see a continued drop over the course of a week, or at least three data points. But the last two have demonstrated a consistent decline,” said Michael Parkins, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Calgary who has been helping lead this research.

We also need to maintain some perspective here, because even if the rates are falling we’re still in a position unlike we have seen in any other point of the pandemic.

But if we do actually see a consistent decline in rates of the virus in wastewater, we can predict a little better when we can ease up on the restrictions.

“Regardless of whether things are moving in the good direction or not, and we’re hopeful it is, we still have SARS-CoV 2 values in wastewater four times higher than what we’ve had through any other peak,” Parkins said. “As things start to improve and our cases fall, our wastewater will predict that six days in advance. We’ll be able to determine when we’ll be able to take the brakes off restrictive measures or look to re-introduce new ones.”

So for now, as we wait with bated breath to see if we have surpassed the peak, the experts agree the best thing to do now is hold tight and continue doing everything we can to limit the spread and hopefully get us through this significant surge.