Ottawa’s COVID-19 hospitalizations, ICU admissions dropping; new case numbers hold steady

Ottawa’s COVID-19 hospitalizations and ICU numbers are on their way down while new case numbers remain steady.

Ottawa Public Health is reporting seven fewer people in hospital with 81 patients, down from 88 from the day before — and four fewer patients in the ICU, which are now at 21 down from Friday’s 25.

On the other hand, new cases on Saturday are coming in at 112, which is slightly up from Friday’s 110.

This brings the total number of cases in the city since the pandemic started to 25,220.

OPH is also reporting that 62 new cases involve variants of concern, interest and/or mutations in the community — 59 of which have been determined to be the U.K. variant while 10 are confirmed to be the South African variant.

One new death is also being reported in Ottawa, bringing the local death toll to 521.

One outbreak at a healthcare institution has cleared since yesterday, bringing the current number of ongoing outbreaks down to 19.

Ongoing outbreaks at childcare centres and schools remain at 10, although one is considered new after another has cleared.

The same goes for ongoing outbreaks in the community — the number remains at six, but one is also considered new.

The incidence rate has dropped to 87.9 per 100,000; while the positivity rate in the community remains unchanged at 6.6 per cent.

Since Friday, 206 more cases have resolved, bringing the total number of cleared cases to 23,241.

Active cases are now at 1,458 in Ottawa.

The Ontario government has the Eastern Ontario Health Unit reporting 23 new cases of the virus — that’s up from Friday’s 15.

The Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health Unit is also seeing an uptick of cases to 10 from the previous day’s one.

However, the Renfrew County and District Health Unit is the only one reporting a slight decrease, to four new cases from five.

After two days of new case numbers above 3,000, Ontario is finally back to reporting new cases in the 2,000s.

According to the Ontario government, the province had 2,864 new cases — down from the previous day’s 3,166.

(This means Ottawa represents about 3.9 per cent of Ontario's total new case count on Saturday.)

Of the new cases on Saturday, 128 were reported among teens ages 14 to 17; 116 among kids nine to 13; and 87 among children ages four to eight.

This brings the total number of cases since the pandemic started to 489,087.

The number of new deaths remain in the 20s with the province reporting 26 on Saturday.

Since Friday, though, 3,596 cases have resolved, bringing the total number of resolved cases across Ontario to 444,342.

As well, 92 fewer people are in hospital, bringing the current number of people in hospital to 1,832.

There are also seven fewer people in the ICU with the virus, bringing that number down to 851.

Lastly, 23 fewer people are in the ICU on a ventilator, meaning 588 people remain on a machine as of Saturday.

Since Friday, the Ontario government has complete 47,817 tests.

Of those, 6.8 per cent were positive — that’s down from Friday’s seven per cent.