Ottawa's COVID-19 cases expected to climb

Ottawa is on track to break even more COVID-19 records next week and if people don't take the stay-at-home order more seriously, it's going to be even worse, according to a modelling scientist.

Dr. Doug Manuel, a senior scientist with The Ottawa Hospital who does the modelling of local numbers, projects that the city will see a daily record of 480 new COVID-19 cases in a week from now, as a safe estimate.

Other COVID-19 indicators like hospitalizations, which was at 84 in Ottawa Thursday, will likely be in the triple digits, he added. Manuel estimates between 100 and 150 people will be hospitalized by next week.

"It's definitely going to go up, but the short-term models are just a bit unclear right now about how quickly they're going to go up," said Manuel. "We'll definitely see more record days in the future for cases."

The variants of concern are changing the game, even during a stay-at-home order, according to Manuel. 

In January we did a good job or a very good job. But with the new variants, very good unfortunately isn't good enough.- Doug Manuel, senior scientist with The Ottawa Hospital

Manuel compared people's behaviour during this stay-at-home order to the provincewide winter shutdown that started Dec. 26.

"In January we did a good job or a very good job. But with the new variants, very good unfortunately isn't good enough," said Manuel. "We have to be excellent."

Manuel said the stay-at-home interventions are not as effective as they were before thanks to variants.

"If we have as effective [of a] stay-at-home order as in January, we know the variants will push against that. We would see a decrease in number of cases, but not as quickly."

On top of that, the stay-at-home order was brought in this spring when COVID-19 levels were already high. Then, there are the reports of people gathering in parks and socializing which are also concerning, he said. 

"When you add them together it's quite worrisome," Manuel said.

Variants doubled in a week

Troy Day, professor of mathematics and statistics at Queen's University, says it's hard to know exactly what will happen with the variants in Ottawa because local historical data of these variants doesn't exist. 

On April 9, Ottawa had 640 cases of the B117 variant first detected in the U.K. About a week later on Thursday, B117 cases more than doubled to 1,363, according to Public Health Ontario. More than half of all new cases have been variants of concern in that time period.

"That doubling you've seen in Ottawa ... that's kind of roughly what you'd expect to happen," said Day. "In a couple of weeks you'd expect the cases to double."

He said the rapid growth is likely due to more transmission of that variant of concern.

The B1351 variant, first detected in South Africa, is "some what relatively stable and low" in Ottawa at a steady six cases in the past week. However, Day is wondering how this variant will act next to the B117 in the coming days and weeks.

"Will that be supplanted by B1351?" said Day. "We don't really know ... how that will play out at this stage."