Ottawa Public Health is reporting 25 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday as the city confirms its first case of a coronavirus variant originally identified in South Africa.
Ottawa has now seen 13,733 cases of the novel coronavirus since the start of the pandemic, with 420 of those cases deemed active, a drop from Monday.
While OPH is reporting a relatively low number of new cases in its latest report, Tuesdays tend to see the lowest additions of new cases per day following typically reduced testing volumes over the weekend.
As a result, the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases remains at 51 per day as of Tuesday.
Public Health Ontario’s daily epidemiological report also shows Ottawa has its first confirmed COVID-19 case with the B.1.351 strain, also known as the N501Y.V2 variant, which was discovered in South Africa.
Ottawa Public Health told Global News in a statement on Tuesday afternoon that the individual who tested positive for the variant had recently returned from a country “where this virus is known to circulate.”
This marks the first case of the South Africa variant in Ontario outside the Peel Region, where two people who tested positive for the virus were confirmed to have the B.1.351 strain.
Newly identified strains of the novel coronavirus from South Africa, Brazil and the United Kingdom are believed to be more transmissible.
The number of confirmed cases of the U.K. variant in Ottawa remains as six as of Tuesday.
One additional person has died in connection with COVID-19 locally, raising the city’s death toll of the pandemic to 427.
There are currently 25 people in hospital with COVID-19 in Ottawa, five of whom are in the intensive care unit.
A new coronavirus outbreak was declared at a Mothercraft Ottawa home child-care facility, where two children have tested positive for the virus.
The number of ongoing COVID-19 outbreaks in Ottawa now stands at 27.
Ottawa is set to reopen its economy starting on Feb. 16, one week from Tuesday.
The city currently appears to be within the bounds of the Orange-Restrict tier of Ontario’s colour-coded provincial framework, but a worsening of the city’s coronavirus levels and other key monitoring indicators could result in the city entering the stricter Red-Control zone when it reopens.
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