COVID-19 infections showed another drop in the last seven days, with Ottawa Public Health reporting 144 new cases as of Tuesday.

That compares with 177 new cases reported last week and 264 new cases the week before.

The health agency reported five new deaths from COVID-19, compared with four a week earlier.

Hospitalizations also showed improvement, with OPH reporting Wednesday there were 72 confirmed COVID-19 patients in hospital as of Tuesday night. There were 80 confirmed cases in last week’s report. This week, 33 patients were admitted to hospital because of COVID-19, while the other 39 were admitted for other reasons. Two patients in the latter group are in intensive care.

Meanwhile, there were four new COVID-19 outbreaks in institutional settings, bringing the total number of current institutional outbreaks to 21.