Key COVID-19 numbers in the Ottawa area today

• Ottawa’s pandemic trends continue to drop.
• Seven more COVID-19 deaths have been reported in the region.

Today’s Ottawa update

Wastewater

The level of coronavirus detected in Ottawa’s wastewater has been generally declining since it peaked in April. The decline has been more steady in the last three weeks.

Still, the most recent data available (the bold red line in the graph below) show the seven-day average calculated on May 15 remained about three times higher than in early March, before the current spike.

Hospitals

Eleven Ottawa residents are in local hospitals to be treated for COVID-19, according to Tuesday’s Ottawa Public Health (OPH) update. That number was 39 two weeks ago and 26 one week ago.

None of those patients is in intensive care.

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 those categories are included, there were 75 patients on Saturday, similar to the number seen in mid-April.

Tests, outbreaks and cases

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

Ottawa has 31 active COVID outbreaks Tuesday. That number has been slowly dropping for about three weeks.

On Tuesday, OPH reported 34 more cases and three more deaths, bringing the city’s COVID-19 death toll to 797. All three of these victims were in their 80s.

The rolling weekly incidence rate of newly confirmed COVID-19 cases, expressed per 100,000 residents, drops to around 45.

At 11 per cent, Ottawa’s average positivity rate for those who received PCR tests outside long-term care homes is  dropping, but very slowly. The average inside the homes isn’t available. The next update is expected Wednesday.

Vaccines

As of Monday’s weekly 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-three per cent of residents age 12 and up have at least three doses and eight per cent have four.

Across the region

Wastewater

Ontario and Quebec continue to be in the sixth pandemic wave. There are signs of improvement in both provinces, and Quebec has ended most mask rules.

Wastewater levels in Kingston are slowly dropping, and sites in Leeds, Grenville and Lanark (LGL) counties and east of Ottawa are stable. Measurements from west of Kingston are a week old while other areas lack publicly available data.

Eastern Ontario’s regional wastewater average is dropping, according to the science table.

Hospitalizations

Western Quebec has 68 COVID hospitalizations, including patients who are no longer considered active cases. Two of those patients require intensive care. The region’s health authority reported two more COVID-19 deaths Tuesday, bringing its total to 312.

Eastern Ontario communities outside Ottawa are reporting about 45 COVID-19 hospitalizations, including about five in intensive care.

Neither includes Hastings Prince Edward (HPE) Public Health which, like western Quebec, has a different counting method.

The health unit for the Kingston area reported two more COVID deaths Tuesday in its first update of the week. It has reported eight this month and 57 total. Its 12 COVID hospitalizations are stable.

Vaccines

More than 5.3 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered to people in the Ottawa-Gatineau region.

Quebec considers about 78 per cent of Outaouais residents to be “adequately vaccinated,” which can be a combination of vaccination and recent infection.

For each of the eastern Ontario health units, there are anywhere from 81 to 92 per cent of eligible residents with at least two vaccine doses, and anywhere from 59 to 71 per cent of adults with three doses.