Ottawa’s physical-distancing measures are slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus in the city, according to Ottawa Public Health officials, but that’s not a sign to start relaxing restrictions already in place.
Ottawa Public Health said Tuesday one more person has died as a result of the novel coronavirus. The city’s death toll now stands at 12.
The public health unit also identified 33 new cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, in the city between Monday and Tuesday, bringing the area’s total up to 619 lab-confirmed cases.
Despite the growth in numbers, 35 per cent, or 217, of those total cases are now deemed resolved.
Forty-two patients are in hospital with COVID-19, 16 of whom are in intensive care.
But officials speaking to members of the media Tuesday afternoon said the rate of hospitalization is doubling more slowly, a key indication of the overall spread of COVID-19 in the community.
Dr. Doug Manuel, an epidemiology specialist with the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, said it’s now taking 12 days for the number of cases in Ottawa hospitals to double, up from the three- to four-day doubling time seen when the city was first hit with the novel coronavirus.
“It’s slowing, and that’s definitely a reflection of physical distancing,” Manuel said.
Officials say the progress in stemming the spread of COVID-19 throughout Ottawa is no cause for relaxing the physical-distancing restrictions already in place, however.
While Ottawa residents might have been tempted over the long weekend to socialize on their driveways or over the fence with a neighbour, that kind of behaviour is a slippery slope to poor coronavirus etiquette, said Dr. Brent Moloughney, Ottawa’s associate medical officer of health. Having a drink with a friend while maintaining the recommended buffer zone might seem innocent enough, but even those actions can put at risk the progress Ottawa has made in curbing the spread of the virus.
“I think we should take comfort that the effort that we have put into place so far is bearing fruit,” Moloughney said on Tuesday’s call. “We shouldn’t take it so far to begin to feel complacent.”
Ottawa Public Health updated its testing criteria over the long weekend. Officials are currently prioritizing health-care workers, close contacts of health-care workers, essential workers forced to work in contact with the public, pregnant mothers, especially those in their third trimester, returning travellers and close contacts of those who have tested positive for the disease. Any people in the previous list who are showing symptoms may be tested for COVID-19.
OPH officials said Tuesday that some 7,300 people have been tested for the novel coronavirus at the COVID-19 assessment centre set up at Brewer Arena. Meanwhile, more than 400 people have been seen at the care clinics set up in the city’s east and west ends to help reduce the burden on Ottawa’s emergency departments.
Otherwise, the public health unit is advising those with symptoms who do not fit the previous criteria to use the province’s self-assessment tool.
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