Ottawa’s daily coronavirus case count trended downward over the weekend as the local public health unit’s metrics show residents appear to be limiting their contacts.
Ottawa Public Health reported 85 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, following increases of 136 cases and 123 cases on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
There have now been 12,371 cases of the virus locally since the start of the pandemic, with 1,232 of those currently considered active.
Two additional people have died in connection with COVID-19, raising the city’s death toll of the pandemic to 405 as of Monday.
The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Ottawa continues to rise, up to 40 on Monday with 10 in the intensive care unit.
One new coronavirus outbreak was added to OPH’s COVID-19 dashboard on Monday, after a staff member at the Park Place retirement home tested positive for the virus. The number of ongoing outbreaks in Ottawa now stands at 41.
- Ontario doctors offer solutions to help address shortage of family physicians
- Vaccine injury compensation fund gets additional $36M from feds
- Bird flu virus detected in U.S. grocery store milk. FDA says supply still safe
- Can U.S. states ban abortions even in medical emergencies? Supreme Court weighs in
A number of Ottawa’s monitoring indicators are heading in the right direction in recent days.
The seven-day average of new cases in Ottawa is down to 125 per day, compared with 142 on Friday.
Ottawa’s estimated R number — the total number of cases connected with an average case of COVID-19 — is now below one, according to OPH. This suggests the spread of the virus is slowing rather than accelerating.
And the number of close contacts per lab-confirmed case of the virus was down to 1.3 between Dec. 28 and Jan. 3, whereas the period including the Christmas holidays had this figure above four.
Data from Ottawa’s wastewater system show the level of coronavirus in the community has steadily declined since the start of 2021.
The percent positivity in the community, which refers to the proportion of coronavirus tests that confirm the presence of the virus, was also down to four per cent between Jan. 11 and 17.
OPH has also added a section to its COVID-19 dashboard tracking the number of coronavirus vaccine doses handed out locally to-date.
The dashboard shows that of the 22,425 doses Ottawa had received by Monday, 21,938 have been administered.
Mayor Jim Watson said at the end of last week that all residents and care workers in long-term care homes will have had the chance to receive their first doses of the vaccine by the end of the day on Friday.
Comments