Key COVID-19 numbers in the Ottawa area today

• Ottawa's COVID-19 trends are stable.
• Its medical officer of health says they're high enough for precautions.
• One more Ottawa resident with COVID has died.
• Wastewater researchers work to account for the spring melt.

Today's Ottawa update

Eight Ottawa residents remain in local hospitals being treated forCOVID-19, according to Thursday's update from Ottawa Public Health (OPH). That number hasbeenaround 10 most of this month.

Two of the patientsarein an ICU.

Ottawa's Medical Officer of Health Dr. Vera Etches said Thursday the city's trends have been stable, but are relatively high. People should still think about ways to limit risks, she said.

Hospital numbersdonot includepeople who came to the hospital for other reasons and then test positive for COVID-19. They also don't cover people with lingering COVID-19problems, or patients transferredfrom other health units.

OPH shares those numbers a few times per week. Theyhave been slowly dropping, but remained stable in themost recent update.

Theaveragelevelof coronavirus in Ottawa's wastewaterhas also beenstable for about a month.

It'sroughly two-and-a-halftimeshigher than it was before the Omicron variant wave. Etches said there's now more protection from vaccines than there wasin early December.

One of the members of the wastewater research team says they are working to account for the effects of the spring melt, which affected its data a year ago.

On Thursday,OPH reported 134 moreCOVID-19 cases and thedeath of a man in his 70s who had COVID. There remain 13 health-care outbreaks in the capital.

The rolling weekly incidence rate of newly confirmedCOVID-19 cases, expressed per 100,000 residents, is around 85.

As Omicron continues tooverwhelmand limittesting, the actual number of cases in Ottawais likely many times higherthan the confirmedcount, and some familiar numbers are affected.

The averagepositivity rate for those who received PCR tests outside long-term care homes rose to 15per cent in the most recent update Wednesday, continuing a trend that started around the end of February.

The averagerate inside thehomes isaround six per cent.

As of Monday's weekly update, 92per cent of eligible Ottawa residents had at least one vaccine dose, 88 per cent had at least two and 61 per cent hadat least three.

Across the region

Communities outside of Ottawa haveabout 40COVID-19 hospitalizations with about 15of them requiring intensive care. These numbers are stable anddon't include Hastings Prince EdwardPublic Health.

Renfrew County remained at 10 COVID hospitalizations in its weekly update with none of them in an ICU.

Wastewater levels arerising or stableat sites in the Kingston area andstable or droppingin LGL.