75% of total COVID admissions at Ontario children’s hospital happened since Dec. 1: CEO

As Ontario deals with the sixth wave of COVID-19 cases, the president and CEO of a children’s hospital in Ottawa says approximately three-quarters of all admissions to the facility in the two years of the pandemic have happened since Dec. 1.

In a thread posted on Twitter, Alex Munter said 191 COVID-positive children have been hospitalized at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) since March 2020. However, since Dec. 1, there have been 144 admissions and 35 of those patients required care over the past month.

He added none of the patients admitted to CHEO have died and the statistics don’t include children who had inflammatory-related issues after contracting COVID-19.

Munter said the number of emergency room visits are “historically high” and that inpatient admissions are similar to a “busy viral season,” but complicating matters for the hospital is its current staffing levels.

RELATED: Sick children are flooding Ontario emergency rooms with COVID-like symptoms in ‘dramatic increase’

He said 144 staff members are isolating at home after contracting the virus from other household members or in the community.

“Our team continues to step up, as they have throughout the pandemic, but it’s getting harder and harder for them to do as they are living with the exhaustion of working with COVID for 25 months,” a statement issued by the hospital on Wednesday said.

“We have had to occasionally cancel surgeries and there are longer waits during clinic appointments. And combined with high volumes in our emergency department, we are also seeing longer waits in the ED. We have even had to transfer patients to other pediatric hospitals out of the region.”

The statement referenced an open letter from regional hospital chiefs of staff and medical officers of health urging all eligible residents to be vaccinated with the maximum number of doses as allowed as well as limiting close contacts, wearing masks in public places and staying home if there are any symptoms of illness.

Children under the age of five aren’t eligible to be vaccinated.

COVID study findings from earlier in pandemic shows children at risk of acquiring virus

The latest data came as a newly released study conducted by physicians and researchers affiliated with CHEO between September 2020 and March 2021 (before the Omicron variant developed) showed children were an “important source” of transmitting the virus even though the odds of transmission are double for adults.

The study saw nearly 700 participants enrolled from 180 households (three-quarters of the households had every person from the home enrolled).

“Kids spread less often than adults, so adults were more effective transmitters of the virus, but kids still transmitted to 37 per cent of their household members,” Dr. Maala Bhatt, the research director for CHEO’s emergency medicine division and a pediatric emergency medicine physician, told CityNews in an interview on Wednesday while discussing the findings.

“Those numbers you can imagine now in a setting of Omicron and B.A.2, these variants are much more highly transmissible, I think it’s safe to say that those transmission rates will be much higher.”

Bhatt said the higher transmission rates can also be tied to the dropping of the “layers of protection” put in place throughout the course of the pandemic such as mask mandates and other public health measures.

RELATED: Toronto’s school board won’t mandate masks despite surging sixth COVID wave

“I think that we have to be aware that if we are in settings such as schools where people are unmasked and together for a long period of time that transmission will occur and transmission will occur at quite a high rate,” she said, encouraging vaccination, masking and hand washing.

When reflecting on COVID-19 at the time, Bhatt said a very low number of COVID-positive household members were isolated from others in the home and that isolation wasn’t an “effective tool.” She said the research team hypothesized at the time the virus was airborne, reinforcing the need for well-fitting face coverings.

Bhatt said she sympathizes with the general desire to “just live with COVID” due to fatigue with public health measures, but wants people to keep in mind wastewater data shows a high level of the virus within Ontario communities.

“We should be aware of these risks and we need to make informed decisions about using protection, and it’s not only just to protect us or an individual but it’s to protect the more vulnerable members of our society who are the elderly, people with multiple comorbities and the youngest children who can’t be vaccinated,” she said.

“As an emergency physician, we are seeing so many children since the Omicron wave coming through the doors of our emergency department with … COVID-like illnesses. And although we’re thankful that kids have been relatively spared in terms of severe effects, there are children who get quite sick.