Key COVID-19 numbers in the Ottawa area today

• Ottawa’s pandemic trends are generally stable or slowly dropping.
• A rising test positivity in long-term care homes is one exception.
• The rising wastewater average in Kemptville is another.
• Three more local residents with COVID-19 have died.
• About COVID 6,000 vaccine doses were given to Ottawans in the last week.

Today’s Ottawa update

Wastewater

The level of coronavirus detected in Ottawa’s wastewater has been very slowly dropping for more than two weeks. 

The most recent data available (the bold red line in the graph below) shows the seven-day average calculated on June 1 remained slightly higher than what it was in early March, before the most recent spike.

It’s about five times higher than in late autumn before Omicron hit.

Hospitals

Fourteen Ottawa residents are in local hospitals for treatment for COVID-19, according to Monday’s OPH update. That number has generally ranged between 10 and 20 for more than three weeks.

One patient 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 40 patients on Saturday. That number has been dropping.

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.

At about nine per cent, Ottawa’s average positivity rate for those who received PCR tests outside long-term care homes has been stable since late May.

The average inside the homes is 11 per cent, a rare trend in the city that is rising.

Ottawa has 18 active COVID outbreaks Monday. That number has been stable this month.

On Monday, OPH reported 149 more cases and two more deaths over three days. The victims were both age 80 or older. This brings the city’s overall COVID death toll to 814 people.

The rolling weekly incidence rate of newly confirmed COVID-19 cases, expressed per 100,000 residents, sits around 25.

Vaccines

917,221: The number of Ottawa residents age five and up with at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, about 250 more than the last OPH update two weeks ago. That’s still 92 per cent of the eligible population.

881,920: The number of Ottawa residents age five and up with a second dose, about 450 since the last update. That’s still 89 per cent of the eligible population.

578,507: The number of Ottawans age 12 and up with a third dose, about 850 since the last update. That’s still 63 per cent of these residents; younger children only qualify with certain health conditions.

Eleven per cent of residents age 12 and up have a fourth dose, or about 96,100 people. That’s more than 4,500 fourth doses since the last update. Eligibility is limited.

Across the region

Wastewater levels are stable in Brockville and Smiths Falls and rising in Kemptville. Data from other parts of the region is either at least a week old, or not publicly available.

Eastern Ontario communities outside Ottawa are reporting about 20 COVID-19 hospitalizations, which has been slowly dropping. About four are in intensive care, which is a stable number.

Neither of those numbers include Hastings Prince Edward (HPE) Public Health, which has a different counting method.

Western Quebec has about 50 COVID hospitalizations, including those no longer considered an active case. One patient requires intensive care.

Renfrew County reported its 50th COVID-19 death Monday.

Vaccines

More than 5.4 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.