Ottawa Public Health puts testing plan in motion

Businesses, governments take action to slow pandemic’s spread

Ottawa Public Health will open an assessment centre at Brewer Arena that is expected to be the first of many in the city to divert coronavirus testing away from hospital emergency rooms already running at over capacity.

Dr. Vera Etches, Ottawa’s medical officer of health, encouraged people with concerns that they might have novel coronavirus to call Telehealth Ontario (1-866797-0000) to take some pressure off Ottawa Public Health, which is now fielding 800 calls a day from concerned residents.

That is quadruple the number of calls OPH was getting even earlier this week. Many are facing wait times before their calls are answered.

For those who think they’ve been exposed to the virus and do contact OPH at 613-580-6744, a public health nurse will assess whether they need to be treated and schedule a time for the person to go to a hospital emergency department.

Ottawa Public Health is asking patients who need testing to stagger their visits to emergency departments.

Hospital emergency rooms are currently testing at least 20 people a day, something described as a burden by health officials this week.

“It’s tough, because they are already very busy,” Etches said.

On Thursday, OPH said its priority was to hear from residents who had travelled to Hubei Province, China, or Iran, residents who had travelled outside the country, including the United States, and exhibited the symptoms of COVID -19, including fever, coughing or difficulty breathing, and residents who have been in close contact with someone who has travelled abroad and is experiencing symptoms.

People who have travelled abroad or who are experiencing symptoms are urged to self-isolate as quickly as possible and contact Ottawa Public Health.

“Our ability to properly manage the COVID-19 situation in our community is depending upon being able to speak with those residents described above,” OPH said. “It is imperative that we manage our lines accordingly.”

Others with questions or concerns about COVID -19 are asked to visit ottawapublichealth.ca/ coronavirus or to call Telehealth.

Etches said the need to allocate more than 70 nurses to answer calls about coronavirus means OPH might have to make decisions about cancelling or reducing other programs. Those decisions are made more difficult because OPH has not received its provincial budget for 2020 yet.

The province did say Wednesday that funding for 2021 would be unchanged, but had said earlier that health units would see reduced funding for 2020.

“Any funding decrease means we have to stop doing something.” Most of OPH funding goes toward salaries.

Ottawa’s Soloway Jewish Community Centre reported one of its families was being investigated for COVID-19 and had put itself into self-quarantine.

The coronavirus outbreak also forced the postponement of the Ottawa St. Patrick’s Day parade, which was to have been held on Saturday. The Irish Society of the National Capital Region said Thursday postponing the event “is the right and responsible thing to do.”

Ontario’s publicly funded schools will be closed from March 14 until April 5, Premier Doug Ford announced during a dramatic day in which the province confirmed 17 new cases of COVID-19, including an Ottawa woman in her 40s who tested positive at the Queensway Carleton Hospital.

Even as the province was announcing plans to shut down schools, Etches said the city will not close March break camps. “Camps are going to continue. We are not seeing local transmission of the virus in our community.”

The school shutdown begins the first week of March Break and will continue for two weeks afterward.

“We recognize the significant impact this decision will have on families, students, schools, as well as the broader community, but this precaution is necessary to keep people safe,” Ford said in his announcement.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he was putting himself into self-isolation and is being tested for the coronavirus along with his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau. Grégoire Trudeau began experiencing “mild flu-like symptoms including a low fever” Wednesday night, according to a statement from her press secretary. Her symptoms have since subsided. The prime minister has no symptoms, the statement said.

The latest confirmed case in Ottawa is a woman who returned from a trip to Italy. She wasn’t ill during her flight, but developed mild symptoms of COVID -19 after returning home, including a cough and fever, Etches said. Other passengers on the flight are not considered to be at risk.

The woman lives alone and continues to have mild symptoms, Etches said.

The woman was tended to at the Queensway Carleton Hospital emergency department “using full precautions, so there is no risk to staff or patients,” said hospital spokeswoman Ann Fuller.

The case highlights how the system worked effectively and safely to manage the situation, she said.

She added that QCH is prepared to treat any patients with more severe cases of the infectious disease.

“While the risk of developing serious complications from COVID-19 is very low, QCH is ready and here for patients who might need acute medical attention.”

Ottawa’s first case of COVID-19 was a man in his 40s who works for Ciena and had returned from a vacation in Austria.

The man went to work for one day at the company’s Kanata campus, which has now been temporarily closed, said Nicole Anderson, Ciena’s vice-president of corporate communications. Two other Ciena employees were with him on the vacation, she said Thursday in an email.

Etches said she was surprised when Ciena announced it had closed its campus, saying the company didn’t consult with Ottawa Public Health.

“If there is a situation where somebody has been ill in the workplace, we would work to identify who needs testing. We would not normally advise closing down a workplace,” she said.

The infected man is now in self-isolation and has been behaving “conscientiously,” according to Ottawa Public Health, which is also investigating the health of a “small number of his close personal contacts.”

The two local cases are not related.

The 17 new Ontario cases announced Thursday include nine males, six females and one “pending” female. They range in age from someone in his 70s to a male baby under one year old who contracted the virus from close contact with an infected person.

Five of the 17 were infected by close contact, while the remainder had recently travelled. Seven had come from the U.S. Others had travelled in Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Spain, Italy and “Europe.”

Nine of the new confirmed cases are from Toronto, two are in Peel Region, two in Waterloo and one each from Hamilton, Halton, Simcoe and Ottawa.

So far, Ontario has tested 4,185 people and has had 59 confirmed cases of the COVID -19 illness. Five of the 59 have since recovered, while 3,590 tests have come back negative. There are 536 cases under investigation, according to the provincial government website as of Thursday morning.

Globally, there have been nearly 130,000 people infected and 4,718 deaths attributed to COVID-19. More than 68,000 people have fully recovered.

Canada has 117 confirmed cases and one death.

Our ability to properly manage the COVID-19 situation in our community is depending upon being able to speak with those residents.