Ottawa has received a fresh crop of COVID-19 vaccines this week amid efforts to deliver a second dose to the city’s long-term care homes.
Ottawa Public Health’s COVID-19 dashboard shows the city has received 30,225 doses of the novel coronavirus vaccine as of Wednesday, roughly 5,000 more than the previous tally.
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This stated total reflects an estimated inventory based on five doses per vial of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, but OPH notes that some administrators in the city have been able to extract a sixth dose from some vials, which could see overall jabs rise above that mark.
The priority in Ottawa’s vaccination campaign has been getting second doses into residents of long-term care homes. Anthony Di Monte, the head of the city’s vaccine distribution task force, said in an update Tuesday that 12 of Ottawa’s 28 long-term care homes have had the second round of vaccinations.
Meanwhile, OPH reported an increase of 61 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday.
The city has now seen 13,466 cases of the virus since the start of the pandemic, with 483 of those cases currently considered active, a drop from Tuesday’s figures.
The seven-day average of new cases in Ottawa dropped slightly to 53 per day, from 55 the day before.
There were no new deaths related to the novel coronavirus on Wednesday.
The number of people in hospital with COVID-19 in Ottawa dropped to 29 on Wednesday, with six still listed in the intensive care unit. Yet capacity across the city’s health-care system remains a concern, with 101 per cent of acute care beds currently occupied across Ottawa, according to OPH.
No new coronavirus outbreaks were added to OPH’s COVID-19 dashboard, with some resolved instances lowering the number of ongoing outbreaks to 31 as of Wednesday.