Ottawa adds 176 COVID-19 cases as hospitalizations climb

Coronavirus levels in Ottawa are growing rapidly as the local public health unit reports another 176 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday.

Ottawa Public Health says there are currently 1,852 active cases of COVID-19 in the city.

One additional person has died from COVID-19, OPH says, raising Ottawa’s death toll of the pandemic to 469.

OPH has so far identified 610 COVID-19 cases flagged as variants of concern, with five deaths connected to these cases.

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The number of people in hospital locally with COVID-19 has hit 56 as of Tuesday. Eighteen of those patients are in the intensive care unit.

OPH’s COVID-19 dashboard shows 97 per cent of acute care beds are currently occupied across Ottawa’s health-care system, while 75 per cent of ICU beds are filled.

Ottawa’s coronavirus weekly positivity rate is up to 7.8 per cent, though single-day figures show a per cent positivity of 9.7 per cent on April 4.

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The weekly COVID-19 incident rate now stands at 124.2 cases per 100,000 people, up from a rate of 85 cases per 100,000 population a week earlier.

Two new COVID-19 outbreaks were reported locally on Tuesday, with a total of 44 ongoing outbreaks now in Ottawa.

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