Recent developments:
- Ottawa recorded five new deaths from COVID-19 over the past three days.
- Outbreaks in healthcare settings dropped to 51, but 12 new outbreaks have emerged.
While many of the key indicators of COVID-19 levels in Ottawa have dropped, public health officials say levels remain high in the community.
Ottawa Public Health (OPH) says the local vaccination rate for children under five is among the highest in the province.
Across the province, health officials reported 96 more deaths related to COVID-19 over the past seven days, the deadliest week of the seventh wave so far.
Last Friday, the province’s chief medical officer of health said Ontario’s seventh wave of COVID-19 had peaked.
SNAPSHOT OF COVID-19 – AUGUST 11, 2022
While our indicators show a decrease, the levels of COVID-19 in our community remain high.
Watch this week’s video and read the tweets below to learn more. (1/5) pic.twitter.com/YXIYtegDep
—@OttawaHealth
Health officials say the current wave is driven by the BA.5 subvariant of the coronavirus and is once again putting a health system already strained by staff shortages at risk.
Two Ottawa-area hospitals had to close their emergency departments earlier this month.
OPH is asking residents to limit contact and consider wearing masks both indoors and outdoors, and is asking businesses to consider bringing back policies such as mandatory masks.
Last month, the vaccine was approved pic.twitter.com/paKGv7tgaF
— @WabanoHealth
The latest update from Ottawa
Waste water
The average level of coronavirus in Ottawa’s wastewater remains high. It rose for more than a month in early June, but has been falling since early August.
A graph of the wastewater levels of the coronavirus as of June 2020. (613covid.ca)
Hospitals
Twenty-six Ottawa residents have been admitted to a city hospital with COVID-19, according to OPH’s latest update. Two of these patients are in intensive care.
According to OPH, hospitalizations are at a moderate level and are decreasing, but they are not the only factor straining healthcare resources.
The hospitalization figures above do not include all patients. For example, they leave out patients admitted for other reasons who later test positive for COVID-19, those admitted for persistent complications of COVID-19 and those transferred from other healthcare units.
Including those categories, 138 patients with COVID-19 were in the hospital as of their most recent data. This number has increased since the previous OPH update.
Ottawa Public Health has a COVID-19 hospital count that shows all hospital patients who have tested positive for COVID, including those admitted for other reasons and living in other areas. (Ottawa Public Health)
Tests, outbreaks and cases
Testing strategies have changed with the Omicron variant, meaning many cases of COVID-19 are not reflected in current counts. Public health officials now only track and report outbreaks in healthcare settings.
The positivity rate of the Ottawa test is around 15 percent.
There are currently 51 active COVID outbreaks in Ottawa. These include 12 new outbreaks recorded in the past three days.
OPH reported 335 more cases and five new deaths over the past three days.
A total of 859 Ottawa residents with COVID-19 have died: 381 in 2020, 229 in 2021 and 249 so far this year.
vaccines
As of the most recent weekly update, 93% of Ottawa residents five years and older had at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and 89% had at least two.
Sixty-four per cent of Ottawans aged 12 and over received at least three doses and 19 per cent took four.
Throughout the region
In the counties of Leeds, Grenville and Lanark (LGL), sewage levels rose in Brockville and Kemptville for most of July, but have started to drop slightly. They are stable in Smiths Falls and the Kingston area.
Western Quebec reports 89 hospitalizations for COVID. Two of those patients are in intensive care and one more person has died in this region in the past week due to COVID-19.
Eastern Ontario communities outside of Ottawa are reporting 30 COVID hospitalizations, including two patients in intensive care.
This regional total does not include Hastings Prince Edward Public Health (HPE), which has a different counting method. His 14 hospitalizations are a slight increase and one patient is in intensive care.
Of the seven local health authorities, three have had more deaths this year than in 2020 or 2021: HPE, Kingston Area and Renfrew County. The six in eastern Ontario have more in 2022 than in 2021.
In Eastern Ontario, 81 to 92 per cent of residents aged five and over have received at least two doses of the vaccine, and 59 to 71 per cent of adults have had at least three.
The total number of vaccine doses administered to local residents has exceeded 5.6 million.