Ottawa residents who received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine are largely completing their vaccine series with a second dose, while the proportion of people still in need of a first dose holds steady, according to the latest update from the local public health unit.
Ottawa Public Health said 70 per cent of all eligible residents aged 12 and older have received both doses of COVID-19 as of Wednesday, up from 69 per cent at the start of the week.
First-dose vaccination rates, however, continue to hold at 83 per cent of all eligible residents, a mark first reached on July 18.
The age 18-to-39 demographic remains behind on first-dose uptake, with 72-73 per cent of Ottawa residents in this age group having received at least an initial shot.
Meanwhile, the number of active COVID-19 cases in Ottawa rose to 49 on Wednesday as OPH reported eight new cases of the virus.
Ottawa’s weekly coronavirus positivity rate ticked up to 0.7 per cent as of Wednesday.
No new deaths related to COVID-19 were included in the most recent report.
One person remains in hospital locally with the virus, OPH says.
Ottawa’s weekly reproduction number, or R, which refers to the average number of secondary infections related to the typical COVID-19 case in the city, dropped to an estimated 0.90 in the most recent report.
This figure, which had been rising above one in the past week, suggests that the spread of the virus is slowing when figures are below one and speeding up when greater than that benchmark.