Ottawa COVID-19 positivity rate up to 10.5 per cent as public health looks into another possible exposure

Ottawa Public Health (OPH) is says residents being tested for COVID-19 are seeing positive results 10.5 per cent of the time as it's counting a few new outbreaks and another possible community exposure.

As of Wednesday, December 22, there are COVID-19 outbreaks at 28 schools, six childcare centres, and six healthcare institutions. OPH is also monitoring 12 community outbreaks.

The latest possible community exposure being investigated by Ottawa's health unit happened at the Shenkman Art Centre's Elvis Christmas Special on December 16. OPH continues to investigate other exposures linked to the Shenkman Arts Centre's Le Group Swing event on December 10,  an Ottawa 67's game on December 11, the Ron Kolbus Centre on December 11, the Glebe Winter Carnival on December 12 and the Infinity Centre's Winter Formal Dance on December 16.

OPH is confirming 387 new cases of COVID-19 in the city, Wednesday. There have been 2,032 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in the last seven days. The health unit says it's linked 405 cases to the Delta variant in the last 30 days, which makes up 29 per cent of all local variant-related cases. There have been 98 cases of Omicron, which makes up seven per cent of all variant cases in the last 30 days. There are another five per cent of variant cases that are inconclusive.

The number of local hospitalizations due to COVID-19 is at six — none of whom are in intensive care. There hasn't been a COVID patient in an Ottawa ICU since December 9.

No new COVID-related deaths in Ottawa leaves the local pandemic death toll at 620. 

OPH knows of 2,435 active cases of COVID-19 in the community.

According to Ottawa's vaccination dashboard, 92 per cent of residents over the age of 12 have had at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine and 89 per cent have now had both necessary to be considered immunized. The health unit says 89 per cent of residents over the age of five have had one shot against COVID-19 and 82 per cent have had two.

The Ontario government is reporting 4,383 new COVID-19 cases across the province, a daily total not seen since April. Wednesday’s case numbers came after two days where there were consecutive slight drops. On Tuesday there were 3,453 new cases and the day before saw 3,784 new confirmed infections. For historical context, April 23 saw 4,505 cases and on April 17 there were 4,362.

There have been 35,320 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ottawa (32,265 resolved) since March of 2020.