Ottawa breaks both daily and weekly coronavirus wastewater records

• Ottawa breaks two coronavirus wastewater records.
• City's COVID hospitalizations and outbreaks rise.
• Renfrew County's hospitalizations are high, but stable.
• Eastern Ontario has the highest regional wastewater average in the province.

Today's Ottawa update

Theaverage level of coronavirus detected in Ottawa'swastewateris at another record high with the latest update (the bold red line in the graph below).

The most recent daily reading on Tuesday (the bars in thegraph) was its highest ever and much higher than levels measured in the first Omicron wave in January and last spring's Alpha-driven wave.

Those records don't reflect the first wave of the pandemicwhen wastewater was not monitored for traces of the virus.

Wastewater is a keyindicatorof whatOttawa Public Health (OPH)calls a concerning resurgence of COVID-19in the city.

Twenty-three Ottawa residents are in local hospitals for treatment of active COVID-19according to Thursday's OPHupdate, a rise that brings this number back to what it was in mid-February.

None are in intensive care.

Hospitalization figures don't includepatients admitted for other reasons whothen tested positive for COVID-19. Nor do they include those admitted for lingering COVID-19complications, nor patients transferredfrom other health units.

That number is also rising.

Testing strategies have changedunderthe contagiousOmicron variant, which means many newCOVID-19 casesaren't reflected in current counts. Only outbreaks that occur in health-care settings are recorded.

On Thursday, OPH reported 234 moreCOVID-19 cases and no more deaths.The health unit also reported a rise to 29health-care outbreaks from the 25 reported Wednesday.

The rolling weekly incidence rate of newly confirmedCOVID-19 cases, expressed per 100,000 residents, rises to around 120.

At 19 per cent, the averagepositivity rate for those who received PCR tests outside long-term care homes is high and stable. The averagein these homes remains around five per cent. The next test update should come Friday.

As of Monday's weekly update, 92 per cent of eligible Ottawa residents have at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, 88 per cent have at least two, and 62per cent of residents age 12 and up have at least three.

Across the region

Quebec'sinstitute of public healthand thehead of the OntarioScience Advisory Tablesay their provinces are in the midst of another pandemic wave. Both say hospitalizations may not get as high this wave because of immunity from vaccines and previousinfection.

Communities outside Ottawa are reporting about 45COVID-19 hospitalizations. About10of them are in intensive care.

Neither of those numbersincludes Hastings Prince Edward Public Health, whichhas a different method of counting hospitalizations.

RenfrewCounty's weekly hospitalization update is stable, with two of its 13 COVID patients in intensive care. It drops to four outbreaks from eight listed last Thursday.

There is stability in western Quebec in itsThursdayupdate, as the region reported 15 COVID hospital patients, near where it was about a month ago.

Eastern Ontario has the highest regional wastewater average amongthe science table's data.

Recent wastewaterdata from the Kingston areaincludethe highest readings of 2022. The wastewater signal isstable across Leeds, Grenville and Lanark countysites,and low atsites east of Ottawa.

The Eastern Ontario Health Unit's Dr. Paul Roumeliotis said Wednesday its trends are slowly rising but the number of people with severe health problems from COVID remains low.

WATCH | The EOHU's weekly video update: