Ottawa broke from the daily trend of single-digit COVID-19 case counts it had sustained for most of July with 10 new cases added on Friday.
Ottawa Public Health’s daily COVID-19 report shows there are 50 active cases of the virus in the city, down slightly from the day before.
No new deaths related to COVID-19 were reportedly locally on Friday. One person is now in hospital with the virus in Ottawa, one fewer than the day before.
Daily COVID-19 case counts in Ottawa have largely been below 10 since the start of July, though OPH’s cleaned-up data on its dashboard shows some days have reported actual figures of between 10-12 infections in recent weeks.
Ottawa’s estimated reproduction number, which refers to the average number of secondary infections related to a typical COVID-19 cases, remains above one on Friday. R values greater than one suggest the spread of the virus is speeding up rather than slowing down.
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Ottawa’s medical officer of health Dr. Vera Etches said Thursday that COVID-19 levels in the city remain low, but vaccination rates are not yet high enough to prevent a potential resurgence of the virus locally in the months ahead.
Canada’s top health officials said Friday that the country is likely at the beginning of a fourth wave of the virus driven by the more-transmissible Delta variant, but the extent of the spread and impact on the country’s health-care system will depend on the level of vaccine coverage nationally.
In Ottawa, 71 per cent of residents aged 12 and older have received both doses of the vaccine as of Friday.
Some 84 per cent of eligible residents have also received at least a first dose, a slight tick upward from OPH’s last vaccination update.
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