Key COVID-19 numbers in the Ottawa area today

A dog is framed by a heart sculpture installed in downtown Kingston, Ont. (Brian Morris/CBC – image credit)

Today’s Ottawa update

Wastewater

The average level of coronavirus in Ottawa’s wastewater has been up-and-down over the last 10 days, generally not far below the pandemic-record peak of this sixth wave earlier this month.

The most recent data from April 27 (the bold red line in the graph below) shows the level is still about nine times higher than what it was in early March before the current spike.

613covid.ca

Those records don’t reflect the first wave of the pandemic when wastewater was not monitored for traces of the virus.

OPH still considers there to be a high level of COVID in the city and highly recommends people take steps to protect themselves and others.

Hospitals

Forty Ottawa residents are in local hospitals for treatment of active COVID-19, according to Friday’s OPH update. That number has risen back to where it was in the second week of February.

Five of those patients are in intensive care. That’s been stable for about 10 days.

The hospitalization figures above don’t include all patients. For example, they leave out patients admitted for other reasons who then test positive for COVID-19, those admitted for lingering COVID-19 complications, and those transferred from other health units.

When you include patients such as these, the number was 120 as of Wednesday. It, too, has returned to where it was in mid-February, and some hospitals are again having staffing problems.

Ottawa Public Health

Cases and outbreaks

Testing strategies have changed under the contagious Omicron variant, which means many new COVID-19 cases aren’t reflected in current counts. Public health only tracks and reports outbreaks that occur in health-care settings.

At 17 per cent, the average positivity rate for those who received PCR tests outside long-term care homes is slowly dropping. The average inside the homes rises to around 12 per cent.

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The city’s 70 outbreaks is high and stable. It includes 29 retirement home outbreaks — the most among health-care settings.

On Friday, OPH reported 127 more cases and no more COVID deaths.

The rolling weekly incidence rate of newly confirmed COVID-19 cases, expressed per 100,000 residents, is around 120.

Vaccines

As of Monday’s weekly vaccine update, 92 per cent of Ottawa residents age five and up have at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose and 89 per cent have at least two.

Sixty-two per cent of residents age 12 and up have at least three doses and five per cent have four.

Across the region

Ontario and Quebec continue to be in the sixth pandemic wave, though Quebec’s health research institute said Wednesday the province’s sixth wave may be drawing to a close.

Wastewater levels in Kingston are stable or dropping. In Leeds, Grenville and Lanark (LGL) counties, the signal is high and stable in Brockville, and low and stable elsewhere. Data available from east of Ottawa is more than a week old.

Eastern Ontario has the highest regional wastewater average in the province, according to the science table.

Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table

Western Quebec has 96 local COVID-19 hospitalizations, including patients no longer considered active cases. Six are in intensive care.

Eastern Ontario communities outside Ottawa are reporting about 55 COVID-19 hospitalizations. About 15 of them are in intensive care. Neither of those numbers includes Hastings Prince Edward Public Health that, like western Quebec, has a different counting method.

HPE reported 31 hospitalizations Friday, reaching the 30s for the first time since January. It also reported its 54th COVID death, the sixth of April.

Renfrew County reported its fifth COVID death of the month and 42nd overall.

LGL’s 16 COVID hospital patients and five ICU patients are both stable totals. The Eastern Ontario Health Unit’s hospitalizations drop from 14 to 10, with stable other trends. The Kingston area’s 15 hospitalizations and six ICU patients are stable.