Brampton mayor calls on Ontario to correct 'misleading' COVID-19 hospitalization data

Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown is calling on Ontario to overhaul how it reports COVID-19 hospitalizations, stating that the data reported daily is "misleading."

Brown went public Wednesday with his opinion on the province's reporting methods for COVID-19 hospitalizations, according to CTV News Toronto.

Ontario patients treated in hospitals who test positive for COVID-19 are added to the provincial government's count of "patients hospitalized with COVID-19," regardless of whether that's why they're receiving treatment.

Brown iterated that, while Brampton is seeing "massive community spread" of COVID-19, the city is not seeing a large number of severe cases.

"They came to the hospital for another procedure and found inadvertently that they had COVID, so no symptoms. So someone might be coming in for a surgery and because we're testing all patients for COVID they find out that way," he said.

"Then they’re in the provincial reported data as hospitalization with COVID, but they’re not being hospitalized because of COVID. I would suggest it's a bit misleading," Brown voiced. "At Brampton Civic [Hospital], we've seen our ICU numbers go down during Omicron from four to two," he added.

Brown went on to note that despite the low hospitalization numbers, there are staffing shortages in the healthcare system due to COVID-19 protocols.

A main factor in these staff shortages is that workers are subject to strict quarantining requirements, which is "putting staffing pressure on the system."