2023's parting gift is a slight easing of some viral data

Recent developments:

• Ottawa's COVID-19 numbers are generally dropping, but still high.
• Flu activity is high and RSV activity is moderate.
• Twenty more COVID deaths have been reported locally.
• Nearly 450 locals with COVID died in 2023, the fewest of the four pandemic years.

The latest

As Ottawa remains deep in both the holiday season and the respiratory virus danger zone, trends are still generally high — but the end of 2023 did bring a bit of good news.

According to the latest numbers, COVID rates in Ottawa are still high, but have dropped. Flu activity also remains high, while respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) trends are more moderate.

Ottawa Public Health (OPH) says the city's health-care institutions remain at high risk from respiratory illnesses, as they have been since the start of September and are expected to remain until at least March.

Experts recommend people cover coughs; wear masks inside, in crowded places and around high-risk people, keep hands and often-touched surfaces clean; stay home when sick and keep up with COVID and flu vaccines to help protect themselves and other vulnerable people.

The updated Novavax COVID vaccine, which uses proteins instead of mRNA, is now available in Ottawa.

In Ottawa

In the past week, the average number of Ottawa residents in local hospitals for COVID-19 is down to 51. It had generally been in and around the 70s since early November.

A separate, wider count — which includes patients who tested positive for COVID after being admitted for other reasons, were admitted for lingering COVID complications or were transferred from other health units — is also down.

There were 40 new patients in the previous week. OPH sees this as a moderate number, down from very high.

Ottawa's weekly average test positivity rate is about 20 per cent, which is stable and seen as very high.

The active COVID outbreak count drops from 33 to 23, with about half in retirement homes. There is still a very high number of new outbreaks. 

The health unit reported 245 more COVID cases in the last week and 10 more COVID deaths in the last two weeks: three victims each in their 70s, 80s and above 90, plus one in their 60s.

Twenty-one per cent of Ottawa residents have had a COVID vaccine since the latest version was first released in mid-September. These figures don't account for immunity from a recent infection.

Ottawa's average coronavirus wastewater level was last shared Dec. 20, when it was seen as very high.

Across the region

The Kingston area's health unit says its COVID and RSV trends are stable and mostly high, while flu trends are stable and more moderate. It has 29 active COVID-19 patients in its hospitals, a number that also includes patients who might live in a different health unit. That is seen as very high and stable.

The Eastern Ontario Health Unit (EOHU)'s big-picture assessment last came Dec. 27, when its overall risk was seen as high. As of Tuesday its average COVID test positivity was a high, stable 21 per cent, with COVID hospitalizations down to 14.

Hastings Prince Edward (HPE) Public Health, like Ottawa, gives a weekly COVID case hospital average. That has risen to 31, which is its highest average since autumn 2022. It says 18 per cent of its residents have had a COVID vaccine in the last six months.

The average COVID test positivity in Renfrew County drops to 15 per cent. It reports a stable seven COVID hospital patients.

Western Quebec has a stable 69 hospital patients who have tested positive for COVID. In the two weeks since its last update, the province reported six more deaths there in the region.

The health unit for Leeds, Grenville and Lanark (LGL) counties reported two more COVID deaths, while there was one more reported in both Renfrew County and the EOHU.

Data for LGL goes up to Dec. 24, when its trends were generally high.

Fewest annual COVID deaths

While data can always change as paperwork is double-checked, and some health authorities still have to report from the final few days of last year, it looks like 2023 had the fewest local COVID deaths of the four pandemic years.

Last year's count sits around 440 people. There were about 580 such deaths in 2020, about 500 in 2021 and about 1,100 in 2022.

2023 was also the first year neither Ontario nor Quebec introduced widespread public health measures to counter COVID. Some settings, particularly in the health-care sector, brought in changes such as mask requirements at times.

While the World Health Organization said in May 2023 that COVID no longer qualifies as a global emergency, it continues to be a pandemic.