Coronavirus: Ottawa adds 179 new COVID-19 cases, ICU patients rising

Ottawa’s daily coronavirus case counts continue to fluctuate as the city’s intensive care units continue to fill with COVID-19 patients.

Ottawa Public Health reported an increase of 179 new cases of the virus on Wednesday, nearly triple Tuesday’s rise. Ottawa’s coronavirus case counts have varied widely over the past week, but the city’s seven-day average remains just below 150 cases per day.

No new deaths related to COVID-19 were reported on Wednesday, leaving the city’s death toll of the pandemic at 398.

The number of active COVID-19 cases in Ottawa is back up to 1,207, OPH’s dashboard shows.

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Two new coronavirus outbreaks were declared in Ottawa, but because the number of resolved outbreaks outpaced new ones, the total number of ongoing outbreaks dropped to 39 as of Wednesday.

There are currently 33 people with COVID-19 in hospital locally and a growing number are being admitted to intensive care. There are now 15 COVID-19 patients in Ottawa’s ICUs, up from 11 on Tuesday, according to OPH’s dashboard.

Dr. Vera Etches said Tuesday that the city’s health-care system is once again in “crisis” due to overwhelming levels of the coronavirus. She and Mayor Jim Watson said they support the Ontario government’s stay-home orders and urged residents to make choices to limit the spread of the virus.

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