OTTAWA —
Good morning. Here is the latest news on COVID-19 and its impact on Ottawa.
Fast Facts:
CHEO doctors, nurses, staff and volunteers must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19
Ontario’s 64,000 public service members must be vaccinated or take regular COVID-19 tests
Unvaccinated people in Ottawa 20 times more likely to contact COVID-19
Ottawa sees a 10th straight day with double-digit COVID-19 case numbers
COVID-19 by the numbers in Ottawa (Ottawa Public Health data):
New COVID-19 cases: 19 new cases on Thursday
Total COVID-19 cases: 28,049
COVID-19 cases per 100,000 (previous seven days): 12.1
Positivity rate in Ottawa: 1.5 per cent (seven day average)
Reproduction Number: 1.02 (seven day average)
Testing:
Who should get a test?
Ottawa Public Health says you can get a COVID-19 test at an assessment centre, care clinic, or community testing site if any of the following apply to you:
You are showing COVID-19 symptoms;
You have been exposed to a confirmed case of the virus, as informed by Ottawa Public Health or exposure notification through the COVID Alert app;
You are a resident or work in a setting that has a COVID-19 outbreak, as identified and informed by Ottawa Public Health;
You are a resident, a worker or a visitor to long-term care, retirement homes, homeless shelters or other congregate settings (for example: group homes, community supported living, disability-specific communities or congregate settings, short-term rehab, hospices and other shelters);
You are a person who identifies as First Nations, Inuit or Métis;
You are a person travelling to work in a remote First Nations, Inuit or Métis community;
You received a preliminary positive result through rapid testing;
You are a patient and/or their 1 accompanying escort travelling out of country for medical treatment;
You are a farm worker;
You are an educator who cannot access pharmacy-testing; or
You are in a targeted testing group as outlined in guidance from the Chief Medical Officer of Health.
Long-term care staff, caregivers, volunteers and visitors who are fully immunized against COVID-19 are not required to present a negative COVID-19 test before entering or visiting a long-term care home.
Classic Symptoms: fever, new or worsening cough, shortness of breath
Other symptoms: sore throat, difficulty swallowing, new loss of taste or smell, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, pneumonia, new or unexplained runny nose or nasal congestion
Less common symptoms: unexplained fatigue, muscle aches, headache, delirium, chills, red/inflamed eyes, croup
All doctors, nurses, staff and volunteers at CHEO will need to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
The Ottawa children’s hospital is joining SickKids in Toronto and the Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital in East York in implementing COVID-19 vaccine mandate polices for staff, volunteers, learners and contractors.
“As we enter this fourth wave, one of the things we know is, of course, COVID looks for unvaccinated people and children under 12 are unvaccinated and so we want to have layers of protection to make CHEO as safe as possible for everyone, of course principally for kids and families,” said Alex Munter, President and CEO of CHEO.
“In addition to the PPE, the masking, the screening, the distancing and all of those measures, vaccination is an additional layer of protection that makes CHEO safer.”
If doctors, nurses, staff and volunteers are not fully vaccinated, the hospitals say, “All options will be considered to effectively enforce the policy.”
The Ontario government is requiring all 64,000 members of the Ontario Public Service to get vaccinated or they’ll have to submit to regular COVID-19 testing.
In a memo sent out to employees Thursday afternoon, the government said all members of the public service will need to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or advise of a medical reason why they cannot be vaccinated.
The policy will apply to all public servants working in ministries or commission public bodies.
Ottawa’s medical officer of health warns the risk of being infected with COVID-19 in Ottawa is 20 times higher for unvaccinated residents than for vaccinated people.
Dr. Vera Etches provided an update on the COVID-19 situation in Ottawa Thursday morning, warning the Delta variant is driving the COVID-19 increase in Ottawa, accounting for 60 per cent of new cases.
New statistics show between July 4 and Aug. 7, 112 cases of COVID-19 in Ottawa involved unvaccinated residents, six cases were in residents who had received their first dose but were not yet protected and 36 cases of COVID-19 were identified in Ottawa residents who had received one dose.
Dr. Etches says there were 14 “breakthrough” cases of COVID-19 in fully vaccinated residents.
“Of the eligible population, the risk of being infected in an unvaccinated person is more than 20 times than that of a person who is vaccinated.”
Ottawa Public Health reported 19 new cases of COVID-19 in Ottawa on Thursday, the 10th straight day with a double-digit case increase.
There are no new deaths linked to novel coronavirus in the capital.
Since the first case of COVID-19 in Ottawa in March 2020, there have been 28,049 laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ottawa, including 593 deaths.
The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
