Novel coronavirus cases spiked in Ottawa on Thursday as the city marks one year since the first death tied to COVID-19.
Ottawa Public Health is reporting a jump of 151 COVID-19 cases in its latest daily report.
The latest jump is well above the previous seven-day average of 83 cases per day.
There are now 817 active COVID-19 cases in Ottawa, according to OPH.
Two additional people died in the past 24 hours, according to OPH, raising the total death toll in the first year of the pandemic to 459. It has been exactly one year since the first Ottawa resident died in connection with COVID-19.
Mayor Jim Watson will host an interfaith service to honour those who have died in the coronavirus pandemic on Thursday evening. The ceremony will be closed to the public but available to watch live on Facebook.
Dr. Vera Etches, Ottawa’s medical officer of health, sought to humanize the casualty figures when speaking to reporters on Wednesday.
“Those numbers on the Ottawa Public Health dashboard represent people. They’re grandparents, mothers, fathers, siblings, aunts, uncles, friends, neighbours, knowledge keepers. They’re people we passed on the street and on the bus,” she said.
The net number of people in hospital locally with COVID-19 is down one to 26 as of Thursday, but eight people are now in the intensive care unit, two more than the day before.
The median age of people in hospital was 66 as of Wednesday, meaning most people hospitalized with the virus are not in the age group currently eligible for COVID-19 vaccines under the provincial rollout.
Etches urged residents to continue sticking to the basics of wearing a mask, maintaining physical distance and staying home when sick to avoid further spread and impact from the coronavirus as the vaccination campaign continues.
“Our collective efforts will prevent more loss, as will the vaccinations that are just starting to make a difference for older adults’ risk in our community,” she said.
Seven new COVID-19 outbreaks were meanwhile added to OPH’s dashboard on Thursday, four of which were connected to schools in the city.
The number of ongoing outbreaks in Ottawa now stands at 47.
Coronavirus levels detected in the city’s wastewater system appear to have dropped in recent days. In the past, viral signals detected in Ottawa’s sewage system have foretold upcoming trends in new infections.
Public Health Ontario meanwhile says 353 likely variants of concern have so far been identified in Ottawa COVID-19 cases.