Medical officer of health Dr. Vera Etches says Ottawa has entered a “defining moment” in its effort to flatten the COVID-19 curve as the city’s public health unit reports a series of troubling new figures in the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Ottawa Public Health reported 242 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, the highest single-day increase in new cases locally.
There have now been 19,030 cases of the virus in Ottawa since the start of the pandemic, with more than 2,000 now considered active.
Etches told reporters Friday that the city has reached its “defining moment” in the coronavirus pandemic.
While surging viral levels are “extremely concerning,” Etches expressed her faith that residents will rein in their behaviour one more time as the city races to vaccinate as many residents as possible.
“Each step forward is getting us to the end,” she said. “We don’t give up, we won’t fall.”
Etches also moved to institute new restrictions on Friday to further clamp down on the spread of the virus in Ottawa.
She said it was likely that schools in the city will suspend in-person learning following the upcoming April break.
She also said she is putting in place new regulations to be followed by businesses allowed to open during the stay-home order.
Effective Saturday at 5 a.m., businesses will be subject to increased reporting requirements whenever there are two or more COVID-19 cases connected to their workplace within a span of two weeks.
Businesses will also be responsible for enforcing mask use and physical distancing in lineups outside their storefronts, including designating one employee to be responsible for managing lines and outlining their approach in a designated COVID-19 safety plan.
OPH is also saying Friday that the number of mutated and VOC cases of the virus locally is much higher than previously reported.
The health unit’s COVID-19 dashboard now shows 1,623 cases are confirmed to be some variant or mutated strain, up from 613 reported as of Thursday.
Six deaths are now linked to COVID-19 variant cases, OPH says, one more than the day before.
The sudden spike in numbers can be traced to a new reporting method for labs testing for variants of concern, according to OPH’s epidemiology team.
There has recently been a “significant increase” in laboratory swabs coming back with variants of concern and mutations, OPH said, prompting a shift in the reporting and analysis process.
“This has resulted in the sudden increase on the OPH COVID-19 Daily Dashboard today. This change in reporting and analysis will provide more timely data going forward,” the health unit said in a statement to Global News.
The number of COVID-19 patients in Ottawa hospitals is also hitting new highs on Friday.
There are 71 people in hospital with COVID-19 locally, up from 69 on Thursday, with 24 people now in the intensive care units.
The coronavirus positivity rate in Ottawa has also grown to 9.2 per cent in the past week, up from 8.8 per cent in the previous period.
Four new COVID-19 outbreaks were added to OPH’s dashboard on Friday affecting local schools, raising the number of ongoing outbreaks in schools and child-care settings to 15.
Two new outbreaks are tied to workplaces in Ottawa, with the number of overall ongoing outbreaks in the city at 45.
Ottawa continues to vaccinate more people each day as supply allows, with Thursday seeing 8,215 COVID-19 vaccine doses administered locally, the highest single-day count of the pandemic.
The city has so far received 223,150 vaccine doses according to Friday’s update, with 84 per cent of that supply administered.
More than 150,000 Ottawa residents have now received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, with just over 25,415 people having received both doses.
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