8 new COVID-19 cases in Ottawa-Gatineau area Monday

Health officials in Ontario and Quebec say there are three new confirmed cases in Ottawa and five more in the wider region.

The new cases reported Monday in Ontario are:

• A girl under the age of 18 in Ottawa who had travelled.
• A man in his 50s in Ottawa who's currently in hospital.
• A woman in her 50s in Ottawa who had close contact with a confirmed case.
• A woman in her 20s in the Belleville area who had close contact with a confirmed case.
• A woman in her 60s from the Ottawa-area Eastern Ontario Health Unit who had close contact with a confirmed case.

The province also gave more details on a case mentioned Sunday afternoon in the Kingston area, a woman in her 70s in who is currently in hospital.

Quebec's daily update added three new cases in the Outaouais, raising the total in the area to eight.

Public health officials in western Quebec say they are conducting "rigorous investigations" to retrace every contact the individuals had with others.

This brings the total to 48 in eastern Ontario, including 24 in Ottawa and 13 kept from the public at CFB Trenton, and eight in western Quebec.

Monitoring compliance to begin in Ottawa

Ottawa's medical officer of health said the city is planning to monitor Ottawa residents for compliance with social distancing and self-isolation measures.

Ottawa is considering using "aggregated data" from "electronic sources" to look at movements and patterns to determine how well citizens are following recommendations, she said.

"That kind of information would tell us [whether] people [are] congregating or not."

WATCH: Etches on the estimated number of COVID-19 infected persons

Thousands may be infected with COVID-19 in Ottawa, public health agency says

5 years ago

Duration 0:46

In a news conference conducted by telephone on Monday, Vera Etches, chief medical officer of health, says Ottawa is now seeing community spread of COVID-19 and that there could be as many as 4,000 undiagnosed cases in the city.

When asked whether this would include cellphone data, Etches indicated that could be a possibility.

"We're looking into different options," she said.

The city also plans to poll residents on measures they are taking in their own lives to control the spread, she said.

Etches reiterated the need to continue to practise social distancing and self-isolation when necessary on Monday.

She clarified in cases where people are practising social distancing that they can still go outside for a walk but should always keep a two-metre distance from others passing strangers on a sidewalk briefly is fine but playing a game of soccer is not.

"Overall social distancing means limit the total number of people you come into contact with and ideally you limit that to only people within your household," she said.

On Sunday, Etches said computer modelling suggests there are as many as 4,000 people with the respiratory illness in the city.

Ontario is up to 504confirmed cases as of Monday, with six deaths related to COVID-19.

Quebec has 628 confirmed and presumptive cases. The province has started combining the two in its daily count as of Monday.