Acting Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Matt Strauss, provided a local update to the Board of Health on Tuesday.
He said this variant is eight times more transmissible than those before it. With that, he added it is 50 per cent less likely to cause hospitalization or death.
While there are less hospitalizations, he said there will be many more cases.
The focus, said Strauss, needs to shift to the effectiveness of vaccines at keeping individuals out of hospital beds.
As of last week the health unit stopped reporting cases due to the change in rules of who qualifies for testing. They are now focusing on the reporting of deaths and hospitalizations.
He said as of Tuesday morning there were five residents of Haldimand-Norfolk hospitalized with COVID-19.