Ottawa bucks the COVID-case surge
City that fun forgot remembered to follow the rules
It is a mocking put-down that many in Ottawa have long tried to shake. But being known as the city that fun forgot might not be a bad thing during a global pandemic, it turns out.
At least that is one of the working theories about what is going on with COVID-19 in Ottawa right now: It is a government town whose residents not only work at home in large numbers but are not averse to following rules, if those rules make sense.
Those are among factors that could help explain why Ottawa is quietly bucking a trend that has seen COVID-19 cases surge and health systems become strained in parts of Ontario and across Canada.
Since mid- October, when it was one of three hot spots in the province, Ottawa's trajectory of COVID-19 cases has dramatically diverged from Toronto's and Peel's, where case counts have continued to rise as Ottawa's have gone down.
The difference was illustrated starkly on Tuesday when Ottawa reported 11 new cases compared to a new high of 569 in Toronto.
Ottawa health officials have been cautious about pronouncing it a trend until now, because case counts don't tell the whole story of how much COVID-19 there really is in the community. That is especially true now that most asymptomatic people are not getting tested. What is more, hospitalization rates and wastewater tracking have been slower to stabilize in Ottawa than cases would suggest.
Plus, there is no shortage of evidence about how quickly trends can turn around when it comes to COVID-19.
“You cannot turn your back on this virus,” warns Dr. Doug Manuel, a physician and senior scientist at The Ottawa Hospital who sits on the Ontario COVID-19 science advisory table. “Our luck can run out.”
But this week, Ottawa's Medical Officer of Health Dr. Vera Etches agreed that the city is “having some success at turning the curve. It does look like we stopped the rapid rise we saw in October.”
The question she and others are getting asked is: What is Ottawa doing right?
Ottawa, she says, has some characteristics that have probably made a difference in the battle to lower the numbers.
Among them, it is a government city, which has meant that a large proportion of people are able to work from home, as are high-tech and many other workers in the city.
“I think we are privileged in Ottawa more than other cities because we have more people who can work from home.”
Compare that with Peel, one of the hardest hit regions in the province, where there are many large industrial employers with a large number of workers, many of whom take public transit to work.
Ottawa is also affluent compared to many cities, has abundant social supports and green space, said Manuel.
It is tougher to avoid crowds in Toronto and other parts of the GTA.
And it might just be that Ottawa residents tend to be fairly compliant to a certain extent.
The city has seen its share of gatherings that have resulted in the spread of COVID-19.
Despite all that, Ottawa became one of the province's first hot spots at the beginning of the second wave this fall, with spiking case numbers and some of the biggest institutional outbreaks in the province.
Manuel said that and an earlier small spike in the summer made him question his feeling that Ottawa residents would tend to be compliant about following public health guidelines.
“I thought in Ottawa we could pull it off. (People are) good at following recommendations. It is a government town,” he said.
“I thought I was wrong, but now I am thinking maybe I wasn't that wrong.”
Even now, hospitalization numbers in Ottawa are not as low as case counts suggest they should be.
Last week, there were 60 people in hospitals with COVID-19 in Ottawa, close to the city's peak last spring.
Ottawa is in the orange zone, compared to Toronto and other GTA communities that are now in the red zone.
Manuel said he has been obsessively looking at markers beyond the daily case counts to try to better understand the situation in Ottawa.
Ottawa's waste water tracking — it is the only city in the province that does it in real time — was slower than cases to begin coming down, but it has, for now. Hospitalizations are still relatively high, but stable.
Manuel credits the work of Etches and Ottawa Public Health for some of the ways the city has managed to keep a lid on transmission, while other cities have not.
Ottawa Public Health conducts public engagement surveys to try to better understand what is going on in the community and has worked to get to the root of what has led to transmissions in some cases.
It has released details of spread resulting from several gatherings in the city.
In one case, Etches highlighted that infections were resulting from carpools and people socializing before and after team sports.
In a letter to Mayor Jim Watson earlier this month, Etches spelled out in detail how people could live safely, following public health advice, during the pandemic.
Etches said there is no magic formula to slow the spread of the virus beyond wearing a mask, staying two metres away from people and limiting contact.
“We all wish there was one effective thing you could do that would be effective everywhere. There is not.”
Manuel said he would like to see hospitalizations and cases go lower for a sustained period of time, as well as recognition that people have to continue what they are doing through the winter.
“You cannot rest on your laurels or think we are doing something that others are not. We have got to figure out a way to sustain this through the winter.”
At a media briefing Tuesday, Etches echoed that caution.
“It is too soon to celebrate,” she said. “We need to keep working at it. We can bring it down. That is the good news here.”
You cannot rest on your laurels or think we are doing something that others are not. We have got to figure out a way to sustain this through the winter.