Ottawa has broken its coronavirus wastewater record 6 days in a row
COVID-19 hospitalizations also rise in the capital after weeks of relative stability
- Ottawa's coronavirus wastewater is still in record-high territory.
- City reports large one-day increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations.
- Health-care outbreaks remain stable.
Today's Ottawa update
The average level of coronavirus detected in Ottawa's wastewater has reached another record high with the latest update (the bold red line in the graph below).
The latest report shows the wastewater level is more than six times higher than before the surge started in early March, and much higher than the previous record in January 2022.
Those records don't reflect the first wave of the pandemic when wastewater was not monitored for traces of the virus.
Wastewater is a key indicator of what Ottawa Public Health (OPH) calls a concerning resurgence of COVID-19 in the city.
Nineteen Ottawa residents are in local hospitals for COVID-19 treatment, according to Tuesday's OPH update, and two of them are in intensive care. Hospitalizations have generally been stable since early March, but Tuesday's one-day increase brings the total to a number last seen in mid-February.
Experts had said the current spread may not, for the most part, have made its way into older age groups, and say both vaccination and increasing immunity may be contributing to that relative stability.
Hospitalization figures don't include patients admitted for other reasons who then tested positive for COVID-19. Nor do they include those admitted for lingering COVID-19 complications, nor patients transferred from other health units.
That number stabilized in its most recent update after rising for a week.
Testing strategies have changed under the contagious Omicron variant, which means many new COVID-19 cases aren't reflected in current counts. Only outbreaks that occur in health-care settings are recorded.
On Tuesday, OPH reported 79 more COVID-19 cases and no more deaths. The health unit also reported 21 health-care outbreaks, which is stable.
The rolling weekly incidence rate of newly confirmed COVID-19 cases, expressed per 100,000 residents, remains around 110.
At 19 per cent, the average positivity rate for those who received PCR tests outside long-term care homes has been slowly rising. The average in these homes remains around five per cent. The next testing update is expected Wednesday.
As of Monday's weekly update, 92 per cent of eligible Ottawa residents have at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, 88 per cent have at least two, and 62 per cent of residents age 12 and up have at least three.
Across the region
Quebec's institute of public health and the head of the Ontario Science Advisory Table say their provinces are in the midst of another pandemic wave. Quebec will keep its mask mandate through at least the end of April, while Ontario's health minister says the province can manage the increase in cases and hospitalizations.
Communities outside Ottawa are reporting about 60 COVID-19 hospitalizations, which has been slowly rising since mid-March. About 10 of them remain in intensive care, which is stable.
Neither of those numbers includes Hastings Prince Edward Public Health, which has a different method of counting.
Western Quebec's COVID hospitalization count rises slightly to 14 after about a month around 10. The count includes one patient in the ICU.
Recent wastewater data from the Kingston area include some of the highest readings of 2022. The wastewater signal is also rising across LGL's sites.