COVID-19 response cost Ottawa Public Health $60 million in 2022
An Ottawa resident walks into a city community vaccination clinic on Sunday. (Colton Praill/CTV News Ottawa)
Ottawa Public Health spent $60 million responding to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022, as the health unit faced the Omicron wave, a new wave of COVID-19 at the start of the school year and administered tens of thousands of vaccines.
A report for Monday's Board of Health meeting shows the health unit posted a $307,000 deficit in 2022.
The report, prepared by medical officer of health Dr. Vera Etches, says Ottawa Public Health spent $60 million on the general response to the COVID-19 vaccine, the vaccine program and school-focused nursing initiative.
"OPH started 2022 with the peak of Omicron and the biggest response it ever mounted to COVID-19, working with the City’s Emergency Operations Centre and community partners to increase uptake and coverage of COVID-19 booster vaccination," Etches writes.
Ottawa Public Health administered over 392,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses through its various clinics last year, and also supported 1,151 COVID-19 outbreaks in high-risk settings.
Ottawa saw several waves of COVID-19 infections in 2022, and there were more deaths from the virus in 2022 than in 2021. The 2022 Ottawa Public Health Annual report says the health unit responded to an "unprecedented and unanticipated COVID-19 resurgence" in the third quarter of 2022, which included 265 outbreaks in high-risk settings.
A total of 382 Ottawa residents died due to COVID-19 in 2022, compared to 230 deaths linked to novel coronavirus in Ottawa in 2021.
The COVID-19 response was fully funded by the Ministry of Health. The ministry provided $89 million in one-time funding for Ottawa Public Health's COVID-19 response in 2021, and the health unit spent a total of $170 million on COVID-19.
Correction
Ottawa Public Health spent $170 million on the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021.
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