New COVID-19 cases dip to 11, but `too soon to celebrate,' Etches says
Ottawa's medical officer of health Dr. Vera Etches cautioned it's “too soon to celebrate” a decline in new cases of COVID-19 in the community, with 11 new lab-confirmed cases reported Tuesday marking the lowest daily total in Ottawa Public Health data in weeks.
New cases continue to rise at an alarming rate in other provincial hot spots, with 1,249 new cases of COVID-19 reported Tuesday — a dip from 1,487 cases reported Monday — including 569 cases in Toronto, 256 in Peel, and 94 in York Region.
“It's important to look at the trend and the average over a number of days,” Etches said during Tuesday's media briefing.
The province and public health agencies look at the seven-day average of cases when assessing risk categories for regions, and the Ottawa Public Health online dashboard reports the data from the “episode date,” or the day the patient started exhibiting symptoms, “so we see a much more even distribution in the numbers,” Etches said.
The number of people going for testing tends to drop on the weekend and peaks mid-week, Etches said, leading to “variations” in the numbers of test results that come back from the lab on any given day.
“So I don't think we can make too much of 11 (new cases). Actually it could be a lot higher tomorrow and I would expect that, on average, we will be similar to where we were last week,” Etches said. “We're turning the curve, but it's not dropping rapidly.
“What makes me think we're more in a stable situation than a really clear decline is that the hospitalizations are still pretty stable,” Etches said. “They had been up at 60, now they're down to 47, which is good, but that's still where it's been for close to the last two months.”
Etches said COVID-19 hospitalizations have been a “stable indicator” of the level of infection in the community, “and that's why it's too soon to celebrate.”
Two additional COVID-19 deaths were also reported Tuesday. Of the 47 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Ottawa, five are in intensive care.
Etches sounded skeptical when asked whether Ottawa could see a “green Christmas,” reaching the “green level” within the next four or five weeks.
Earlier in the day, Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Christine Elliott chalked up a controversial comment by Dr. David Williams to his optimistic nature when he suggested that all Ontario regions could move into the green level of the pandemic restrictions framework before Christmas, if everyone did what they're supposed to.
“While of course we are very hopeful that all of Ontario will be in a green situation before the holidays,” Elliott said, “I don't think it's something we can count on at this point.”
“I think it's going to take something dramatic to change the trajectory we are on, which is a slow decline,” Etches said.
“We need to stay in this direction we're going, with this protection we're providing each other with our behaviours that decrease transmission, but it's a slow, slow decline.”