One new case of COVID-19 reported in Ottawa Tuesday
OTTAWA — Ontario health officials are reporting a single new case of COVID-19 in all of eastern Ontario in the last 24 hours.
Ottawa Public Health reported the single case in Ontario’s daily epidemiologic summary at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday. It was among 91 new cases reported across all of Ontario Tuesday.
This follows a report of four cases on Monday, breaking a 16-day trend of double-digit COVID-19 increases.
However, Dr. Raywat Deonandan, an epidemiologist with the University of Ottawa, says lower numbers could be related to lower testing figures over the long weekend.
“It’s going in the right direction; however, this is the first day back from a long weekend and there’s going to be a backlog of tests to be processed,” Dr. Deonandan told Newstalk 580 CFRA’s Ottawa at Work with Leslie Roberts on Tuesday. “Some people will not have gone in to be tested because of the long weekend. I always take the numbers at the beginning of the week with a little hesitation.”
There has been an increased demand for testing in recent days, with wait times of up to four hours reported at Ottawa’s COVID-19 assessment centres.
According to the OPH COVID-19 dashboard, testing returns did drop over the course of the long weekend.
- July 31: 1,188 test results; positivity rate 0.6%
- Aug. 1: 874 test results; positivity rate 0.2%
- Aug. 2: 793 test results; positivity rate 0.3%
- Aug. 3: 736 test results; positivity rate 1.5%
OPH cautions that illnesses that began within the last three days may not be reported. The dashboard update only representing a snapshot in time, with data as of 2 p.m. the day before the most recent update.
In a statement Tuesday afternoon, the Champlain COVID-19 Response Committee (CCRC) said 11,163 tests were performed between July 26 and Aug. 3. Over the long weekend, some testing centres were closed, but the Brewer Arena remained open. The number of tests at the Brewer Arena on Saturday, Sunday and Monday remained relatively the same as other days, but the overall number of tests was down because the Moodie and/or Heron sites were closed.
- July 26: 772 tests at Brewer Arena only
- July 27: 1,502 total tests at Brewer Arena (703), Moodie Drive (427), and Heron Road (379)
- July 28: 1,632 total tests at Brewer Arena (822), Moodie Drive (421), and Heron Road (389)
- July 29: 1,602 total tests at Brewer Arena (802), Moodie Drive (403), and Heron Road (397)
- July 30: 1,594 total tests at Brewer Arena (815), Moodie Drive (405), and Heron Road (374)
- July 31: 1,400 total tests at Brewer Arena (665), Moodie Drive (385), and Heron Road (350)
- Aug. 1: 725 tests at Brewer Arena only
- Aug. 2: 773 tests at Brewer Arena only
- Aug. 3: 1,156 total tests at Brewer Arena (745) and Moodie Drive (411), no tests at Heron Road
According to OPH, there have been 2,560 laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ottawa since the first case was confirmed March 11.
No new deaths were reported Tuesday, making a full week of zero deaths. The death toll from COVID-19 in Ottawa stands at 264. There was one death reported in all of July.