2 new COVID-19 deaths, 96 new cases in Ottawa

Ottawa Public Health (OPH) is reporting 96 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Saturday and two new deaths.

The city's death toll now stands at 293. There have been 4,626 cases of COVID-19 recorded in the nation's capital since the start of the pandemic and of those, 3,547 are considered resolved.

The majority of Saturday's cases, 52, were in people under 30.

Ottawa now has 786 active cases of the virus, up 19 since Friday. There are also 219 more active cases in the nation's capital than there were last Saturday.

There are42 ongoing outbreaks at city institutions like long-term care facilities, child-care centres and schools.

Concerns about fall sports

There have also been four city of Ottawa employees at five community and recreation centres who've tested positive for COVID-19 since Thursday.

All the recent developments have created concerns about indoor fall sports that are just getting back underway.

"I think it was discouraging to everybody to see those numbers. We've been ... working very closely with the health units and are fully prepared to do whatever the health units recommend," saidPaul Ross,a director with Hockey Eastern Ontario's board of governors.

"As unfortunate as it would be, if that means ceasing hockey, then we would cease hockey."

The league hascreated its own bubble, with each team only playing a single opponent, Rosssaid. None of their players use any of the Ottawa arenas where there have been positive cases, he added.

Ontario reports 653 new cases

The reports from OPH don't necessarily reflect how many people tested positive for COVID-19 on the day they're made public; rather, they indicate the number of new cases OPH is notified of as of 2 p.m. the previous day.

Ontario reported 653 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, with the numbers largely concentrated in three hotspots:Toronto, Peel Region and Ottawa.

To tackle a recent surge in those three regions, the province announced new public health restrictions on Friday that are now in effect.

The province's official COVID-19 death toll also took a considerable jump, increasing by 76 to 2,927. However, 74 of those deaths occurred in the spring or summer and are now being recorded as "part of a data review and data cleaning initiative," the Ministry of Health said.

In western Quebec, meanwhile, health officials have confirmed 23 new cases since yesterday.

The region has had 1,446 cases of COVID-19 and 34 deaths since the pandemic began.