Ottawa Public Health has launched a webpage to track public COVID-19 exposures in the city where it’s struggling to reach everyone affected.
Three community outbreaks were listed on the page at its launch, with a fourth added around noon on Tuesday:
- A Tourism Industry Association of Canada Congress convention at the Westin Ottawa on Nov. 30 from 9:15 a.m to 5:30 p.m. and Dec. 1 from 8:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.
- The Bronson Centre on Dec. 2 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. The venue hosted a Dwayne Gretzky holiday show that night.
- Xtreme Trampoline in Kanata on Dec. 5 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:45 p.m.
- The Bronson Centre on Dec. 7 from 6:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. The venue hosted a Big Wreck & Monster Truck concert that night.
Anyone who was at any of the above locations at the times and dates listed and who is also showing symptoms of COVID-19 should immediately get a test and self-isolate, whether vaccinated or not.
Anyone fully vaccinated and not showing symptoms does not have to self-isolate, while the unvaccinated or partially vaccinated should isolate for 10 days and only get tested if they start showing symptoms.
OPH has a full list of instructions for anyone possibly exposed on the webpage.
Additional outbreaks will be added regularly and will remain up for 14 days, the incubation period for the virus.
The exposures listed on the website don’t account for all community exposures in Ottawa, only those where OPH hasn’t been able to identify everyone who might have been affected.
Most of the outbreak locations do have public health measures in place, OPH says, but COVID-19 transmission remains a risk.
OPH has typically been reticent to disclose the specific locations of community outbreaks during the pandemic, citing privacy concerns.
But the health unit said in a statement Monday evening that the rapid spread of the Omicron variant in Ottawa was making it difficult for its contact tracers to efficiently get in touch with high-risk contacts.
“The emergence of the Omicron variant has led to a large increase in the number of people testing positive for COVID-19 in Ottawa. As a result, Ottawa Public Health is currently experiencing a backlog with its case and contact management system, resulting in delayed notifications to people who have tested positive for COVID-19 and their high-risk contacts,” the statement read.
OPH is asking all residents to inform their own high-risk contacts about the need to self-isolate and get tested.
While OPH’s COVID-19 update on Tuesday still shows only eight cases of the Omicron variant locally, a suspected Omicron infection goes through multiple days of genetic sequencing before it can be confirmed. Public health experts expect the variant, believed to be more transmissible, will overtake Delta as the dominant strain in Ontario in short order.
Meanwhile, Ottawa continues to see a spike in outbreaks specifically affecting elementary schools and daycares.
Nine new COVID-19 outbreaks were added to OPH’s dashboard on Tuesday, raising the number of active outbreaks in elementary schools to 28 and child-care settings to six. There are now a total of 42 ongoing outbreaks in Ottawa.
OPH reported 124 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, raising the number of known active cases in the city past 800.
There are still six people in hospital locally with COVID-19 and no patients in the intensive care unit, unchanged from Monday.