Key COVID-19 numbers in the Ottawa area today

• Ottawa's COVID-19 hospitalizations, wastewater are stable.
• City's test positivity average rises further outside long-term care homes.
• Leeds, Grenville and Lanark counties report their 84th COVID death.
• Ottawa Public Health makes some reporting changes.

Today's Ottawa update

There are eightOttawa residentsin local hospitals being treated forCOVID-19, according to Wednesday's update from Ottawa Public Health (OPH). That number hasbeenaround 10 most of this month.

None of the patientsarein an ICU.

Citing improving health indicators for the province as a whole,Ontario's chief medical officer of healthannounced Wednesday it is lifting most mask mandates March 21 and all pandemic rules April 27.

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, more recently dropping after a brief bump.

It'sroughly two-and-a-halftimeshigher than it was before the Omicron variant wave.

On Wednesday,OPH reported 170 moreCOVID-19 cases and no more deaths.

The rolling weekly incidence rate of newly confirmedCOVID-19 cases, expressed per 100,000 residents, is around 80.

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 rises to 15per cent, continuing a trend that started around the end of February. The averagerate inside thehomes isaround six per cent.

There remain 13 health-care outbreaks in the capital.

As of Monday morning, 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.

OPH will now provide only weekly vaccination updates on Monday and won't update case data on weekends.

Across the region

Communities outside of Ottawa haveabout 40COVID-19 hospitalizations with about 15of them requiring intensive care.

These numbers have been slowly dropping anddon't include Hastings Prince EdwardPublic Health, which reported a large drop in COVID hospitalizations on Monday, from 17 to nine.

Leeds, Grenville and Lanark (LGL) counties reported their 84th COVID death Wednesday and its hospitalizations remain stable

Wastewater levels arerising or stableat sites in the Kingston area, rising or stableeast of Ottawa,andstable or droppingin LGL.