Ottawa will begin reopening from Ontario’s COVID-19 shutdowns after the Family Day long weekend, but exactly how far the city’s coronavirus restrictions will be loosened remains to be seen.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Christine Elliott announced on Monday afternoon the province’s state of emergency will not be extended when it expires on Feb. 9.
Three local public health units, including Renfrew County and Kingston, will reopen on Wednesday, while Toronto, Peel and York regions are set to open on Feb. 22.
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Ontario begins phased reopening Wednesday, majority of regions to remain in lockdown
The remaining health units in Ontario, including Ottawa, will reopen on Feb. 16.
Each region will reopen according to the province’s colour-coded framework, with slight changes. Limited in-person shopping will be available even to regions in the Grey-Lockdown level of the framework with a 25 per cent capacity limit for most retail settings, for example.
Exactly what the restrictions will look like in Ottawa on Feb. 16 will therefore depend on the rates of transmission and other indicators in the city at the time.
As of Monday, Ottawa’s COVID-19 figures place the nation’s capital on the upper bounds of the Orange-Restrict level of the province’s reopening framework, though some indicators put the city close to the Red-Control tier.
Ottawa Public Health’s COVID-19 dashboard places the city in the red on its own colour-coded system, which does not necessarily align with Ontario’s framework.
While levels of the virus, outbreaks and hospitalizations linked to COVID-19 have generally been declining under the province-wide lockdown, some of the city’s coronavirus figures ticked back up over the weekend.
Ottawa Public Health reported an increase of 38 COVID-19 cases on Monday, following increases of 73 cases on Sunday and 58 cases on Saturday.
Four people died in connection with COVID-19 since Friday, according to OPH, raising Ottawa’s death toll of the pandemic to 426.
The seven-day average of new coronavirus cases rose to 51 per day as of Monday, up from 46 daily cases on Friday.
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There are currently 456 active cases of the virus in Ottawa, up slightly from 438 cases on Friday.
Estimates of the city’s average reproduction number, which refers to the number of additional people testing positive for the virus in connection with a typical case, is back above one. This suggests the spread of the virus is speeding up more than slowing down.
The city’s coronavirus positivity rate stands at 1.6 per cent as of Monday.
Hospitalizations continue to drop in Ottawa, with 23 people currently in hospital with COVID-19, six of whom are in the intensive care unit.
No new COVID-19 outbreaks were added to OPH’s dashboard on Monday, leaving the number of ongoing outbreaks at 28.
Ottawa administered 31,554 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as of Monday. The city has an inventory of 34,225 doses thanks to a shipment of 4,000 Moderna doses on Friday.
On Sunday, the city began its campaign to vaccinate residents of retirement homes, having finished the second round of vaccinations in long-term care facilities on Friday.