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Recent developments:
- Ottawa’s pandemic trends are mostly rising.
- Its hospitalizations dropping are an outlier.
- Ottawans got about 12,000 3rd and 4th doses in the last eight days.
- Hospitalizations remain high in the Belleville area.
The latest Ottawa update
Ottawa Public Health (OPH) said late last week COVID-19 levels were high going into Thanksgiving weekend as another pandemic wave rises. Cold and flu season has also begun.
Experts recommend staying home when sick, gathering outside, considering wearing masks indoors and in crowded outdoor spaces, and getting the added protection of a COVID vaccine, including the updated bivalent booster available to adults.
While COVID-19 vaccines and previous infection give some protection, subvariants continue to emerge.
Wastewater
The weekly average level of coronavirus in Ottawa’s wastewater has been high and rose further at the start of October.
As of Oct. 5, the average is about 11 times higher than it was at this time last year.
Hospitals
Seventeen Ottawa residents have been admitted to a city hospital with COVID-19, according to OPH’s latest update.
That number had been slowly rising and then started dropping around the start of October. It’s back at a level not seen since July.
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 you include those kinds of patients, the number is stable
Tests, outbreaks and cases
Testing strategies changed under the Omicron variant, meaning many COVID-19 cases aren’t reflected in current counts. Public health officials now only track and report outbreaks in health-care settings.
Ottawa’s test positivity rate has now risen for about a month, currently sitting at 18 per cent. OPH considers that high.
There are currently 62 active COVID outbreaks in Ottawa. This is moderate, according to OPH, and slowly rising.
OPH reported 296 more cases over three days and two more deaths: one person in their 50s who had COVID and one in their 70s.
Vaccines
Ottawa residents received about 12,400 COVID-19 vaccine doses in the last eight days (reporting was delayed a day because of Thanksgiving).
About 11,000 of those were fourth doses, close to the number from the previous week, and another 1,000 were third; Moderna’s bivalent vaccine has been OPH’s most popular since the last week of September.
As of the most recent weekly update, 93 per cent of Ottawa residents aged five and up had at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, 90 per cent had at least two and 61 per cent at least three.
Twenty-six per cent of Ottawans aged 12 and older had at least four. Children 12 to 17 are only eligible if they’re significantly immunocompromised.
Nearly 8,000 residents under age five have had a first dose, which is about 17 per cent of Ottawa’s population of that age group.
Across the region
Spread
As of the most recent update, wastewater trends are mixed in Kingston and low and stable in Casselman. They’re rising in Brockville and Kemptville and high and stable in Smiths Falls.
Data from other areas is out of date or unavailable.
The average test positivity in the Eastern Ontario Health Unit (EOHU) rises to about 15 per cent.
Hospitalizations and deaths
Western Quebec’s health authority, CISSSO, reports a stable 83 COVID hospitalizations. One of them is in intensive care.
Eastern Ontario communities outside Ottawa are reporting about 50 COVID hospitalizations, nine of them in intensive care.
That count doesn’t include Hastings Prince Edward (HPE) Public Health, which has a different counting method. It reports a rise to 43 local COVID hospitalizations, one of its highest counts of the year. Three of those patients are in intensive care.
Leeds, Grenville and Lanark counties reported two more COVID deaths in their weekly update for a total of 124.
Vaccines
Across eastern Ontario, between 81 and 92 per cent of residents age five and up have received at least two vaccine doses and between 52 and 64 per cent of those residents have had at least three.
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