Notable numbers from the 1st year of the COVID-19 pandemic
A look at some of the highs, lows and benchmarks
Since the COVID-19 pandemic started bearing down on the Ottawa-Gatineau region with the first case announced on March 11, 2020, we've leaned on data to tell us about the illness and its effects on local people and institutions.
Here's a look back on some of the important ones and the stories they've told.
These numbers are all as of March 10, 2021, and generally from health units, unless otherwise noted.
Early days
61: The estimated number of COVID-19 cases in Ottawa residents on March 11, 2020 — the day the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic.
0: Ottawa's last day with zero new COVID-19 cases logged by Ottawa Public Health (OPH) was March 16, 2020.
2.53: The estimated peak of R(t), a measure of COVID-19's spread per infected person, in Ottawa was March 9, 2020, when testing capacity was much smaller.
13.4%: Ottawa had a little more than 13 per cent of its current testing capacity when the Brewer Arena test site first opened in March 2020. It could handle 330 tests a day, according to the testing task force, compared to a capacity of about 2,460 a day in the system now.
700: The approximate number of Canadians who took repatriation flights back to CFB Trenton and Cornwall, Ont., from places such as China, Japan and San Francisco in February and March 2020, according to the federal government.
The first wave
20: The number of Ottawans with COVID-19 in intensive care peaked April 13 and 14 of 2020.
62: The number of Ottawans with COVID-19 in hospital peaked on April 29, 2020.
275: The number of cases in the Leeds, Grenville & Lanark (LGL) District Health Unit in April 2020, its month with the highest cases. It included some very serious outbreaks.
Summer lull
1: June 29, 2020 was the last day OPH reported just one case in a day.
62: Ottawa's known active case count on July 2, 2020, the lowest of the summer. The lowest number in the autumn was 450 on Nov. 23.
3: The number of cases in the Renfrew County and District Health Unit in both July and August.
The second wave
188: The most new cases in a single day in Ottawa was on Jan. 7, 2021.
1,728: Ottawa's most known active cases during the pandemic was Jan. 12, 2021.
98: Ottawa's weekly incidence rate, a rolling seven-day total of new COVID-19 cases expressed per 100,000 residents, peaked on Jan. 14, 2021. The EOHU got above 140 around this time. The threshold for a region to move to Ontario's red zone is 40.
341: The number of new cases in the Eastern Ontario Health Unit in October 2020. Before that, the region had 318 combined cases in 9 months.
37: The number of deaths in each of November and December 2020 in the Outaouais. It saw 121 of its 164 deaths since the end of October.
Overall
150,000: OPH's rough estimate of how many Ottawans have had COVID-19, based on a calculation that takes into account people who had it, but didn't test positive.
582: The total number of COVID-19 outbreaks logged by Ottawa Public Health.
0: Confirmed cases in communities such as Killaloe and Pikwakanagan. Other areas, such as Champlain Township, Deep River, Quinte West and the Town of Renfrew, have zero known active cases. Not every health unit breaks cases down by community or active cases down by district.
446: The number of deaths due to COVID-19 recorded in Ottawa.
32: The age of Ottawa's youngest COVID-19 victim. On the other end of the spectrum, 152 of Ottawa's COVID-19 victims were above age 90.
93: The high-end estimate of the number of in-person learning days lost to Ontario's shutdowns, using the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board's secondary school calendar. It counts exam days and days in early September 2020 when some, not all, students were eligible to be in classrooms.
68: CBC's count of the number of times Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox & Addington Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore has taken to his now-familiar board on YouTube to give a video update (at least, based on the thumbnails).
