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Nevertheless, it’s still a marked deterioration from last July, when typically fewer than 0.5 per cent tested positive.
The percentage of positive tests has been rising rapidly in Ottawa since Labour Day — and health officials were keen to avoid another holiday-inspired acceleration.
The other trend being watched carefully by Ottawa Public Health is the rate of infection in the community, otherwise known as R (t) — which measures how many times a single infected individual will forward the pathogen. The last bit of public data from OPH described a seven day average of 0.8 as of Oct. 5. At first glance this suggests a community that is getting control of things, especially compared with the situation immediately after Labour Day, when infected people were passing along the illness to an average of 1.5 people each.
What we don’t know is what happened between Oct. 6 and 11 — transmission data for this period has been suppressed thanks to a larger than normal backlog. This needs to be sorted out before statisticians can properly calculate the new ratio.
Bottom line: the province and OPH alike would like to use the next four weeks to reverse some key trend lines. Which of course leaves many of the region’s small businesses once more in limbo, with many owners hanging on by the thinnest of margins, despite promised financial help from Ontario, Quebec and the federal government. Ontario, for instance has earmarked $300 million to assist businesses affected by the latest shutdowns with fixed costs such as property taxes and energy bills.
