OTTAWA

Ottawa records 118 new COVID-19 cases, fewest since early April

Michael Woods CTV News Ottawa Senior Digital Lead

Published Thursday, April 29, 2021 10:51AM EDT Last Updated Thursday, April 29, 2021 6:15PM EDT

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OTTAWA -- Ottawa Public Health reported some good news and some bad news in its daily release of new COVID-19 case data on Thursday.

The good news: the health unit is reporting 118 new cases of COVID-19 in Ottawa, the fewest since the beginning of April.

However, the city also hit a new high mark of critical care patients, with 35 Ottawa residents in intensive care units in local hospitals.

The new case number marks a dip from Wednesday in Ottawa, when public health officials reported 217 new cases. It's the lowest increase in new cases since April 1, when OPH reported 116 infections.

Provincial officials had earlier reported 147 new cases for Ottawa. The provincial and Ottawa Public Health numbers often differ because of different data collection times.

Provincewide, officials reported more than 3,800 new cases, an increase of about 400 from Wednesday.

Forty-one more people have died provincewide, bringing the death toll during the pandemic in Ontario to 8,029.

No new deaths were reported in Ottawa on Thursday. On Wednesday, Ottawa surpassed 500 deaths from the virus.

OTTAWA'S KEY COVID-19 STATISTICS

Ottawa entered Ontario's COVID-19 stay-at-home order at 12:01 a.m. April 8.

Ottawa Public Health data:

COVID-19 cases per 100,000 (April 21-27): 131 (up from 130.5)
Positivity rate in Ottawa: 9.9 per cent (April 21 – 27) (unchanged)
Reproduction number (seven day average): 0.84

Reproduction values greater than 1 indicate the virus is spreading and each case infects more than one contact. If it is less than 1, it means spread is slowing.

VACCINES IN OTTAWA

Ottawa Public Health updates vaccine numbers on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. As of Wednesday:

Ottawa residents with 1 dose: 306,035 (+14,931 from Monday)
Ottawa residents with 2 doses: 27,156 (+203 from Monday)
Total doses received in Ottawa: 321,510

A shipment of 14,040 Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doses arrived this week. This shipment is included in the number of total doses received. The number of doses received does not include doses sent to area pharmacies, but the number of doses administered does include shots administered at pharmacies.

VARIANTS OF CONCERN

Ottawa Public Health data*:

Total B.1.1.7 (UK variant) cases: 24
Total B.1.351 (South Africa variant) cases: 7
Total P.1 (Brazil variant) cases: 0
Total variants of concern/mutation cases: 4,744
Deaths linked to variants/mutations: 25

*OPH notes that that VOC and mutation trends must be treated with caution due to the varying time required to complete VOC testing and/or genomic analysis following the initial positive test for SARS-CoV-2. Test results may be completed in batches and data corrections or updates can result in changes to case counts that may differ from past reports.

COVID-19 Cases in Ottawa
Infogram

HOSPITALIZATIONS IN OTTAWA

The number of people in hospital with COVID-19 related illnesses increased Thursday to 121 from 116.

There are 35 COVID-19 patients in the intensive care unit, up from 33. That's a new all-time high for the city during the pandemic.

Hospitalizations (and ICU admissions) by age category:

0-9: 1
10-19: 0
20-29: 1 (this person is in the ICU)
30-39: 6
40-49: 7 (3 in ICU)
50-59: 38 (13 in ICU)
60-69: 30 (12 in ICU)
70-79: 30 (5 in ICU)
80-89: 6 (1 in ICU)
90+: 2

These data are based on figures from Ottawa Public Health's COVID-19 dashboard, which refer to residents of Ottawa and do not include patient transfers from other regions.

ACTIVE CASES OF COVID-19 IN OTTAWA

The number of active cases of COVID-19 in Ottawa fell significantly on Thursday to fall and is now below 2,200.

There are 2,149 active cases of COVID-19 in Ottawa on Wednesday, down from 2,363 active cases on Wednesday.

A total of 21,330 people have recovered after testing positive for COVID-19. OPH says 332 more people have recovered from the virus over the past 24 hours, a record number for newly resolved cases.

COVID-19 TESTING IN OTTAWA

The Ottawa COVID-19 Testing Taskforce said Thursday that 1,908 swabs were taken at local assessment centres on Wednesday and labs performed 4,503 tests. The average turnaround from the time the swab is taken at a testing site to the result is 22 hours.