Ottawa breaks both daily and weekly coronavirus wastewater records
8th straight day with a record average includes the highest daily reading yet
- Ottawa breaks two coronavirus wastewater records.
- City's COVID hospitalizations and outbreaks rise.
- Renfrew County's hospitalizations are high, but stable.
- Eastern Ontario has the highest regional wastewater average in the province.
Today's Ottawa update
The average level of coronavirus detected in Ottawa's wastewater is at another record high with the latest update (the bold red line in the graph below).
The most recent daily reading on Tuesday (the bars in the graph) was its highest ever and much higher than levels measured in the first Omicron wave in January and last spring's Alpha-driven wave.
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.
Twenty-three Ottawa residents are in local hospitals for treatment of active COVID-19 according to Thursday's OPH update, a rise that brings this number back to what it was in mid-February.
None are in intensive care.
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 is also rising.
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 Thursday, OPH reported 234 more COVID-19 cases and no more deaths. The health unit also reported a rise to 29 health-care outbreaks from the 25 reported Wednesday.
The rolling weekly incidence rate of newly confirmed COVID-19 cases, expressed per 100,000 residents, rises to around 120.
At 19 per cent, the average positivity rate for those who received PCR tests outside long-term care homes is high and stable. The average in these homes remains around five per cent. The next test update should come Friday.
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. Both say hospitalizations may not get as high this wave because of immunity from vaccines and previous infection.
Communities outside Ottawa are reporting about 45 COVID-19 hospitalizations. About 10 of them are in intensive care.
Neither of those numbers includes Hastings Prince Edward Public Health, which has a different method of counting hospitalizations.
Renfrew County's weekly hospitalization update is stable, with two of its 13 COVID patients in intensive care. It drops to four outbreaks from eight listed last Thursday.
There is stability in western Quebec in its Thursday update, as the region reported 15 COVID hospital patients, near where it was about a month ago.
Eastern Ontario has the highest regional wastewater average among the science table's data.
Recent wastewater data from the Kingston area include the highest readings of 2022. The wastewater signal is stable across Leeds, Grenville and Lanark county sites, and low at sites east of Ottawa.
The Eastern Ontario Health Unit's Dr. Paul Roumeliotis said Wednesday its trends are slowly rising but the number of people with severe health problems from COVID remains low.
WATCH | The EOHU's weekly video update: