Sixth wave stabilizing in Ottawa: Etches

COVID hospitalizations rise in Ottawa Ottawa's top doctor updates the COVID situation as signals indicate cases may have peaked. CTV's Megan Shaw reports.

Ottawa’s medical officer of health says the COVID-19 situation in Ottawa is stabilizing, but it could still be some time before the sixth wave bottoms out.

Dr. Vera Etches told the Ottawa Board of Health meeting on Monday that some indicators of the situation in the city are not increasing, but they’re not decreasing either.

“The percentage of people testing positive is relatively stable, and the number of new hospitalizations has been stable over the last couple of weeks,” she said.

Ottawa Public Health reported 31 residents in hospital because of an active COVID-19 infection on Monday, with five in intensive care. Etches told reporters after the meeting that there were 22 new hospitalizations due to COVID-19 in Ottawa in the last seven days, down from 25 in the seven days before that.

“We really are seeing a very stable picture, when it comes to hospitalizations,” she said. “I’d like to see it decrease. It’s not decreasing. Usually, hospitalizations will decrease after we see that turn in the wastewater, but it takes some time because hospitalizations show up later and then people stay in hospital for awhile.”

She expects the number of people in hospital because of COVID-19 could increase in the coming days due to that delay, but should begin to go down after that.

The wastewater signal plateaued the last several days, according to the data, with a slight decrease in the seven-day mean viral signal in the most recent reporting.

While the wastewater spiked to record levels this month, peaking on April 11, the hospitalization count didn’t follow suit the way it did in the previous wave in January. Dr. Etches says the level of COVID-19 immunity in the city is high.

“The level of population immunity now is enabling people to have access to more determinants of health, such as more employment, physical activity options, and social connections, without causing the level of severe COVID illness that we reached at previous heights,” she said.

To date, 92 per cent of Ottawa residents have had their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, 89 per cent have had at least two, and 63 per cent have had booster shots. Etches noted the boosters have also helped reduce severe outcomes in long-term care, and she also commented that people continue to roll up their sleeves for their first dose.

“It’s never too late,” she said.

OPH data show 347 people got their first doses last week, 520 got their second, and 1,703 got their third.

BOARD MOTION CALLS FOR RETURN OF MUNICIPAL POWERS

A motion passed at Monday’s Board of Health meeting called on the provincial government to restore some of the pandemic response powers to the medical officer of health that were phased out earlier this year.

Dr. Etches no longer has the authority to issue letters of instruction to businesses or other groups to address gaps in the pandemic response that weren’t covered by provincial regulations. The motion that was passed asked that medical officers of health be once again allowed to issue such letters or other similar directives, such as requiring masks in public spaces like schools.

Etches said the COVID-19 situation at present doesn’t require the city to lean on mandates and restrictions, but such things could be necessary in the future.

“I think what we would need to be concerned about would be something where we don’t see voluntary behaviour change making enough of a difference in severe illness outcomes,” she said. “That may be in a situation with a new variant that’s causing very severe illness, or something that’s very transmissible, that is so prevalent that it’s overwhelming how society is functioning.”

SOME TEMP WORKERS TO BE LET GO AS PANDEMIC RESPONSE WINDS DOWN

Etches said that OPH plans to wind down some of its COVID-19 response over the course of 2022, which does mean temporary workers hired to supplement that will see their jobs come to an end.

Etches said, at the peak of the vaccination rollout, OPH had brought in about 3,500 additional employees, but not all of them were full-time.

“Many of those people were working in other health-care settings and they were coming and giving us a couple of shifts in the vaccine clinics, so most of that 3,500 would be casual employees who weren’t relying on us for full-time employment,” she explained.

There were about 600 full-time temporary workers at the peak of the pandemic response for vaccination clinics, communications, case and contact management and infection prevention and control roles. The demand in those areas is decreasing, but Etches said OPH would not be going back to its baseline level of employment.

“Our budget is not to return to our base of 700 people. We expect that we’ll need about 30 per cent of the capacity of what we’ve been spending on our COVID response right through the end of the year.”