Ottawa's COVID-19 death toll grows by 4
Another four people have died from COVID-19 in Ottawa, raising the city's death toll during the pandemic to 321.
Ottawa Public Health (OPH) reported the latest deaths Thursday, along with 58 new cases and 82 cases now deemed resolved.
That bring the number of people who have tested positive for COVID-19 in Ottawa to 6,830, including 670 known active cases and 5,839 resolved cases.
About 60 per cent of the newly confirmed cases are people under the age of 40. Forty patients are currently in hospital being treated for COVID-19, five in intensive care.
Ottawa's medical officer of health Dr. Vera Etches said earlier this week there are encouraging signs the spread of the coronavirus is slowing in Ottawa, but she's still warning against trick-or-treating this weekend.
OPH said more than 1,500 people were tested for COVID-19 in Ottawa on Tuesday, the latest data available, but the city's testing sites have capacity for 1,000 more on weekdays. Meanwhile, labs continue to lag behind, with nearly 3,000 tests waiting more than 24 hours to be processed Tuesday.
The portion of tests coming back positive has risen to 2.7 per cent, and OPH is learning of those results within 48 hours 75 per cent of the time, short of the target of 90 per cent.
There's a new outbreak at École élémentaire catholique George-Étienne-Cartier, the seventh active outbreak at an Ottawa school.
All outbreaks linked to sports have ended.
Elsewhere, another person with COVID-19 has died in the Eastern Ontario Health Unit and there are 40 new COVID-19 cases in the Outaouais.
That region is close to tripling the total case count it had at the end of August.
