COVID-19 clearly moving towards endemic phase, says infectious disease expert

With most indicators suggesting the sixth wave of COVID-19 has peaked across Canada, a Toronto doctor says we may be close to switching from a pandemic phase to an endemic phase.

Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist with the University Health Network, says the virus isn’t going away anytime soon but Canada is in a much better position to mitigate severe outcomes and enter a stage of predictability.

“I’m not diminishing how significant this is, this is still a nasty infection and we should still do everything we can to protect ourselves and those around us,” said Bogoch, speaking to Breakfast Television on Thursday morning.

“Having said that, we are clearly working our way through the pandemic into an endemic phase.”

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An endemic is defined as a time when an infection is maintained at a constant level within a population. It is not an end to new infections, but a stage where the volatile waves of rising or falling cases are no more.

Ontario has still seen a significant surge of cases during the sixth wave driven by the Omicron BA.2 variant. Infections were higher than at any other point during the pandemic according to wastewater data, but the amount of severe outcomes have not reached levels seen in previous waves.

Hospitalizations currently sit at the highest point since mid-February, but the numbers come with the Ford government having lifted nearly all public health measures. As of Thursday, Ontario health officials reported 1,661 people hospitalized with COVID-19.

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Source: @jkwan_md

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Earlier this week, the province’s medical officer of health, Dr. Kieran Moore, said the virus is still circulating in communities, however, he added that he expects hospitalizations and ICU numbers to stabilize at some point in the next week.

Bogoch says the advancements of the vaccine and other therapeutics have put provinces in a better position to handle surges of infection.

“Clearly we are in a much better place right now than where we were a year, and two years ago,” says Bogoch. “If we were doing this with a different variant, at a different time in the pre-vaccine era, sadly I think we would be getting throttled.”

Bogoch says even when we enter an endemic phase, the virus will still continue to circulate and have a severe effect on at-risk individuals. He says governments should continue to use a science-based approach moving forward to ensure all individuals are as safe as possible.

Too early to link reports of severe hepatitis among kids to COVID

The Public Health Agency of Canada says it is looking into reports of severe acute hepatitis, or liver inflammation, among young children in Canada.

Bogoch says it’s still too early to connect the dots between the growing number of cases of the liver disease and the pandemic.

“When you’re doing an investigation it’s extremely important to keep an open mind,” he says. “It absolutely might be a COVID-related illness but you don’t want to have an anchoring bias and just say it’s COVID and ignore something else.”

The federal agency says the cases are being investigated to determine if they are related to similar cases in the United Kingdom and the United States.

Moderna seeks approval for COVID-19 vaccine for youngest children

Moderna asked U.S. regulators to authorize low doses of its COVID-19 vaccine for children younger than six, potentially paving the way for the last ineligible age group to be vaccinated against the virus.

If approved, it could pave the way for similar authorization in Canada.

Bogoch says the risk of severe infection remains highest for oldest age groups but there has been a spike among some younger individuals who aren’t old enough to get the shot.

“Of course you want to make sure it is safe,” he says. “Like anything else, show us the data, we want transparent data before giving the green light.”

Pfizer is also soon expected to announce if its even smaller-dose shots work for the youngest kids.