Here's what you need to know about the new Omicron variant in Waterloo Region

The newest strain of COVID-19, EG.5, is emerging and health officials in and around Waterloo Region are keeping a close eye on it.

“EG.5 is just another one of these variations of Omicron that is now becoming more common in parts of the world including Canada and Ontario,” Dr. Matthew Tenenbaum, associate medical health officer with Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph, said.

The strain has been detected in the U.K., South Korea and the U.S., and officials say it’s now in Ontario.

“In terms of what we are getting, we don’t see [that] it’s more severe than the rest of the Omicron variants,” Zahid Butt, an associate professor at the University of Waterloo’s School of Public Health Sciences, said.

“It has nearly the same symptoms as the previous COVID-19 variants such as a runny nose, fatigue, fever and chills.”

The most recent COVID-19 report from the Region of Waterloo shows a steady decline in virus related hospitalizations over the past 90 days.

Experts say it’s too early to tell if EG.5 will create major pressure on local hospitals, but Butt said he doesn’t expect it to.

“The good thing is we do have some immunity from past vaccinations, as well as previous infections, so we don’t expect it would be as severe as when there was no vaccinations or other things,” he said.

“But maybe you would see some uptick of cases and maybe some hospitalizations because of this new COVID-19 variant.”

As fall approaches, people will be spending more time indoors and kids will be returning to school, prompting those in the healthcare sector to prepare for an uptick in hospitalizations due to illness overall.

“We know that regardless of what variant we’re dealing with, we’re going to have pressure this fall and winter with COVID-19, flu, RSV and other things on our hospitals, on our health care partners and on the community at large,” Dr. Tenenbaum said.

To avoid catching EG.5, doctors recommend returning to the basics of the pandemic by increasing hand washing, masking when in crowded areas or travelling, staying home when sick and getting vaccinated when eligible.

“We don’t have full data yet and that is one of the things we are looking to better understand as the data emerges, but we expect the vaccines available this fall will be very good at protecting against severe illness from this new Omicron strain,” Dr. Tenenbaum said.

“We will be doing clinics along with primary care providers, pharmacies and other partners who are involved. We are expecting that people will think about getting their COVID-19 shot around the time that they’re thinking about getting their flu shot.”