Ontario’s top doctor to speak as flu season nears and COVID-19 cases expected to rise

Ontario's chief medical officer of health is set to discuss how the province is preparing for the fall flu season, just as Ontario wastewater data shows a slight uptick in the amount of COVID-19 in the province.

Dr. Kieran Moore is scheduled to provide an update at 1:00 p.m. at Queen's Park. You can watch it live in this story.

Data published by the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table shows wastewater signals, an early trend indicator, have ticked up since mid-August after declining for three weeks.

Last week, the group said that it will be dissolved early next month after more than two years of helping inform Ontario's response to the pandemic.

The last time Moore gave an update was mid-July, when he announced Ontario would expand eligibility for fourth shots of COVID-19 vaccines to all adults. At the time, Moore said healthy people under the age of 60 who have had three doses already may want to wait until the fall for a second booster.

The announcement also comes as some Ontario hospitals have experienced shut-downs throughout the summer as a result of health-care staff shortages, and as students are set to return to schools for the first time without COVID-19 restrictions.

Health Canada approved COVID-19 booster doses for children aged 5 to 11 on Aug. 19. While Saskatchewan and Alberta have since expanded eligibility to include the age group, Ontario has not.

According to Ontario's COVID-19 vaccine website, a booster dose is "not currently authorized" for those children.

Moore said earlier this month that the province's seventh wave of COVID had peaked, with waves arriving in roughly three-month intervals.

At the time, he predicted a fall wave would not be as bad as previously expected, given so many people have been infected with the Omicron variant, combined with protection from high vaccination rates and the absence of a new variant of concern.