Expert says rising Omicron case numbers can ‘crush hospitals’

COVID-related hospitalizations in Saskatchewan are starting to creep up again as a huge number of people are getting sick with the Omicron variant.

Dr. Alex Wong, an infectious disease physician in Regina, joined the Greg Morgan Morning Show on Thursday to stress the importance of getting booster shots in order to prevent a surge of people requiring hospitalizations, as well as to take the stress off a strained health-care system.

“The reality right now with Omicron is that even though it does seem to cause a significantly less degree of severe illness compared to Delta, when you have a very large proportion of the population getting Omicron, then even a small percentage of that large proportion is going to crush hospitals,” he said.

“That’s what we’re seeing right now, in Ontario and Quebec.”

Both eastern provinces have seen a surge in hospitalizations after multiple days of record-breaking case totals. Health-care workers have been a common victim of getting sick due to the very transmissible variant, something Wong is worried about happening here at home.

“When you got 20 to 30 per cent of your workforce out, that’s going to make it even more difficult to man and staff hospitals to do what needs to kind of get done,” Wong said. “So unfortunately, that’s coming.”

The large number of fully vaccinated people contracting COVID doesn’t necessarily surprise Wong, as he cites waning immunity as a reason for the increasing numbers.

“Vaccines were never designed to prevent infection altogether,” he said. “At the end of the day, vaccines are designed to limit disease from whatever virus or whatever it is that you’re trying to be vaccinated against.

“That has always been the intention. Vaccines work extremely well. The fact that Omicron has mutated significantly means that vaccines are not working quite as well to protect us against infection.

“But being optimally vaccinated significantly protects against severe illness, hospitalization and death. So this is why the vaccine is critically important and we need to focus on that.”

To date, 242 cases of the Omicron variant have been confirmed in Saskatchewan and 2,245 cases are considered probable.