Summer surge: How severe is COVID in Canada? And what should you do?

Doctors say we are in a summer wave of COVID-19. Specimens to be tested for COVID-19 are seen in Surrey, B.C., on Thursday, March 26, 2020. (The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck)

Earlier this week, the World Health Organization warned that COVID-19 infections have been surging lately, with new waves rolling across the Americas, Europe and the western Pacific.

In Canada, cases are also on the rise, says Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious diseases specialist based out of Toronto General Hospital.

"We don't have the same methods or degree to detect it as we once did," Bogoch said. "But some of the metrics that we do have are showing that there certainly is more COVID around now than there was a couple of weeks ago."

With COVID-19 case tracking not as easily available, how can Canadians gauge the situation for themselves?

Tracking COVID-19 surges

Wastewater surveillance is one way to see how the virus is spreading in certain regions, Bogoch said.

The Public Health Agency of Canada has wastewater data on viral activity for not only COVID-19, but flu and RSV as well. Currently, the viral activity level for COVID-19 in Canada is "moderate," according to the site, with levels particularly high in Nova Scotia, Vancouver and Toronto.

Individual provinces have wastewater tracking for different cities – British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec, for example.

Ontario's wastewater surveillance is no longer being updated, though the site points to a respiratory virus tool that tracks information like outbreaks, test positivity and deaths for COVID-19, influenza and RSV.

The latest weekly summary in Ontario indicates a "moderate" percent positivity for COVID-19.

How severe are these waves?

In late 2021, the Omicron variant of COVID-19 quickly spread, becoming the dominant variant across the world.

Bogoch said we're still in the "Omicron era," but that the current sub-lineage KP.3 is less impactful than those first waves that overwhelmed health-care systems.

"It doesn't appear that there's going to be any surprises with this particular sub-lineage of Omicron based on the data we've seen to date," Bogoch said. "So if people want to know what this is going to be like, look at the last couple of waves and it'll probably look very similar to that."

With the majority of Canadians vaccinated for COVID-19, as well as having been previously infected and recovered from the virus, the effects of a wave shouldn't be close to the same as they once were.

"You still have to respect this virus and it still packs a punch, especially with people who have risk factors for severe illness," Bogoch said. "But it's not impacting Canada or our health-care system to nearly the same extent as it once did."

Do the same precautions still apply?

Public health mandates are a thing of the past, but Bogoch said the same strategies – choosing to put on a mask indoors, for example – still apply for anyone wanting to reduce their risk of infection.

"We haven't been living in an era of mandates for quite a long time, but the same precautionary measures will work," Bogoch said.

With any respiratory illness, Bogoch said staying home from work, if someone has the ability to do so, and putting on a mask while around others will reduce the spread of that infection.

"Regardless of what people are sick with – be it influenza, RSV, COVID, the common cold – regardless of what they're sick with, you don't want to get others sick," Bogoch said. "It's best to be able to stay home and not get anyone else ill."

Do we treat COVID-19 differently than other respiratory infections?

Bogoch said there are always going to be differences, as well as similarities, between COVID-19, influenza and RSV in terms of treatments and transmission.

But COVID-19 being grouped with those other illnesses is something we did not see during the height of the pandemic, Bogoch said.

"I think if we take a step back and look at the 30,000-foot view right now, COVID is currently being treated very similar to other upper respiratory tract infections, whereas two-plus years ago, it was treated very differently," he said.