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Tag: Ottawa-Gatineau

Topic: wastewater monitoringView all posts for the topic: wastewater monitoring

Measles ‘inevitable’ in Ottawa, expert warns as Ontario outbreak spreads

Published March 26, 2025

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Published by: Ottawa Citizen
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By Elizabeth Payne

Ottawa Public Health has begun monitoring wastewater for evidence of measles in the city as the highly infectious disease continues to surge throughout Ontario.

That makes Ottawa one of the only communities in the province and across Canada using wastewater as a possible early warning signal for measles. Ottawa Public Health says the tool is promising for detecting measles, but the research is limited and “many unknowns remain”.

There have been no cases in Ottawa so far this year but Dr. Gregory Rose, who is director of infection prevention and control at Queensway Carleton Hospital, warns that it is only a matter of time.

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Topic: wastewater monitoringView all posts for the topic: wastewater monitoring

Amid Canada’s largest measles outbreak in more than a decade, experts say this COVID-era tool could help

Published March 26, 2025

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Published by: CBC News
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By Jennifer La Grassa

As Canada deals with its largest measles outbreak in more than a decade, health experts say a COVID-era tool could help tame the spread.

Wastewater surveillance, which involves testing sewage samples for viral pathogens, became essential during the pandemic. The data helped overwhelmed health officials map out COVID-19’s path and better predict the trajectory of cases.

At the time, it was praised as a critical public health tool that could serve as a warning system to keep Canadians safe from future harmful infections. And as the current measles outbreak surpasses 500 cases in Canada, experts say this is the moment where leaning into regional wastewater surveillance would be most helpful.

Continue readingAmid Canada’s largest measles outbreak in more than a decade, experts say this COVID-era tool could help
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International Long COVID Awareness Day 2025Image of Ottawa sign with teal-coloured letters, with text in white reading: International Long COVID Awareness Day. Teal, grey and black symbol of International Long COVID Awareness Day.
Topic: Ottawa-GatineauView all posts for the topic: Ottawa-Gatineau

International Long COVID Awareness Day 2025

Published March 12, 2025

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International Long COVID Awareness Day – COVID-cautious walk

Date: Saturday, March 15, 2025

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Where: Ottawa City Hall (meet at the entrance, Laurier Avenue side)

Join us for a walk on International Long COVID Awareness Day, Saturday, March 15, 2025 at 7 pm. The route is wheelchair-accessible.

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Topic: Ottawa-GatineauView all posts for the topic: Ottawa-Gatineau

City of Ottawa to fly flag at half-mast March 11 marking lives lost to COVID-19

Published February 26, 2025

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Published by: CTV News
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By Ted Raymond

The City of Ottawa will be marking five years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic with a flag-lowering in March.

The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on March 11, 2020, triggering a wave of public health measures and restrictions on populations in an attempt to stop the spread of the deadly virus.

More than 1,200 residents of Ottawa have died from COVID-19 according to public health statistics.

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Topic: labour rightsView all posts for the topic: labour rights

This immunocompromised public servant says RTO could put their life at risk

Published January 27, 2025

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Published by: Ottawa Citizen
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By Chris Aylward

Public Service Confidential is a workplace advice column for federal public servants. The following question has been edited for clarity and length.

I am an immunocompromised federal public servant with multiple chronic illnesses. I still work from home, but HR wants me back in the office three days a week the moment they can give me a private office beside the bathroom. My doctor wrote a letter to counter the accommodation, saying it’s not appropriate and even less beside a bathroom with the shared environment, and it could put my life at risk of getting sick with complications. So I am fighting to keep my full-time telework agreement.

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Topic: OntarioView all posts for the topic: Ontario

Dropping vaccination rates for children in Ontario raise measles fears

Published December 22, 2024

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Published by: Ottawa Citizen
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By Elizabeth Payne

Just 70 per cent of seven year olds in Ontario were fully vaccinated against measles last year, according to Public Health Ontario.

That represents a steep drop in vaccination coverage compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the data. There have been similar declines for other routine childhood vaccines as well.

A decade ago, during the 2013-14 school year, 94 per cent of seven year olds in Ontario were fully immunized against measles. That number has steadily declined since then. Herd immunity for measles, which is among the most contagious infections in the world, is between 90 and 95 per cent.

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Topic: Ottawa-GatineauView all posts for the topic: Ottawa-Gatineau

Ottawa Public Health warns of very low risk of hepatitis A exposure at south-end Tim Hortons

Published December 17, 2024

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Published by: CTV News
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By Ted Raymond

Ottawa Public Health is warning residents about a possible risk of exposure to hepatitis A at a local Tim Hortons in the city’s south end.

OPH says it is investigating a confirmed case of hepatitis A in an employee at the Tim Hortons at 372 Hunt Club Rd.

Continue readingOttawa Public Health warns of very low risk of hepatitis A exposure at south-end Tim Hortons
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Topic: OntarioView all posts for the topic: Ontario

‘Mind boggling’ surge in pneumonia cases among children, teens and young adults

Published November 27, 2024

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Published by: Ottawa Citizen
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By Elizabeth Payne

Perth emergency physician Dr. Alan Drummond has never seen anything like it. Drummond has treated five or six patients with pneumonia during almost every shift…

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Topic: convoy occupationView all posts for the topic: convoy occupation

Pat King found guilty of mischief for role in ‘Freedom Convoy’

Published November 22, 2024

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Published by: The Canadian Press
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By David Baxter

Pat King, one of the most prominent figures of the 2022 “Freedom Convoy” in Ottawa, has been found guilty on five counts including mischief and disobeying a court order.

A judge in an Ottawa courtroom Friday said the Crown proved beyond a reasonable doubt that King was guilty on one count each of mischief, counselling others to commit mischief and counselling others to obstruct police. He was also found guilty of two counts of disobeying a court order.

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Topic: avian fluView all posts for the topic: avian flu

Wastewater testing for avian influenza to begin in some Ontario communities

Published November 8, 2024

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Published by: Ottawa Citizen
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By Elizabeth Payne

As bird flu infections continue to rise among livestock and humans in the United States, surveillance is ramping up in Canada.

Wastewater testing for the H5N1 bird flu virus is set to begin in the coming weeks in Ontario communities considered at high risk, said Rob Delatolla, whose University of Ottawa lab will lead the wastewater surveillance as part of a research program based at the University of Guelph. That will likely mean testing wastewater in communities in agricultural regions of the province. It is unclear whether there will also be testing in larger cities.

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Topic: labour rightsView all posts for the topic: labour rights

Sick days skyrocketed as Treasury Board employees returned to the office

Published October 31, 2024

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Published by: Ottawa Citizen
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By Catherine Morrison

The number of sick days employees working for the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat took during the month of September skyrocketed as the department urged public servants to make their way back to their offices at least three days a week.

According to departmental data, TBS employees took a total of 2,191 sick days between Sept. 1 and Sept. 30.

That was up significantly from previous years. During the same period in 2023, employees took 1,708.9 sick days. In 2022, they took 1,477.9 sick days and in 2021 they had 1,075.4 sick days. In 2020, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, TBS employees’ sick days totalled a mere 827.6 days.

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Topic: Ottawa-GatineauView all posts for the topic: Ottawa-Gatineau

CHEO introduces new ‘safety measures’ for viral season, including masking requirements

Published October 22, 2024

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Published by: CTV News
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By Josh Pringle

Eastern Ontario’s children’s hospital is reintroducing safety measures for the viral season, including requiring people to wear a mask in clinical areas and waiting rooms and limiting the number of caregivers accompanying a patient to an appointment.

CHEO says the viral season can bring a “triple threat for children and youth” with seasonal influenza, COVID-19 and RSV.

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Topic: Ottawa-GatineauView all posts for the topic: Ottawa-Gatineau

Ottawa’s wastewater surveillance program extended for another year

Published October 4, 2024

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Published by: Ottawa Citizen
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By Elizabeth Payne

Two months after the Ontario government pulled the plug on wastewater surveillance, Ottawa health and research institutions have teamed up to extend the program in the city for a least another year.

Calling it an innovative solution that allowed for better monitoring of COVID-19 in the community, CHEO, the CHEO Research Institute, the University of Ottawa and Ottawa Public Health announced an extension of wastewater surveillance on Friday.

In addition to monitoring COVID-19 levels in wastewater, the program monitors levels of influenza, RSV and mpox in Ottawa. The program has been extended until September 2025.

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Topic: Ottawa-GatineauView all posts for the topic: Ottawa-Gatineau

uOttawa, CHEO and OPH extend monitoring of viruses in wastewater to 2025

Published October 4, 2024

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Published by: CTV News
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By Ted Raymond

Our research group is truly grateful for the overwhelming support we’ve received from the community over the past few months through emails, letters, and phone calls advocating for the continuation of our wastewater monitoring system.

We’ve gained invaluable insights into how this information is essential for community members facing health challenges, and we are thrilled to continue providing this vital service. A heartfelt thank you to OPH, CHEO, and CHEO-RI for their unwavering support.

— Dr. Robert Delatolla
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Topic: University of OttawaView all posts for the topic: University of Ottawa

Indigenous Garden takes root at uOttawa Faculty of Medicine

Published September 24, 2024

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Published by: University of Ottawa
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By David McFadden

The dedicated green space will serve many purposes, including actively fostering engagement and reconciliation with Indigenous community members.

From the hollow of an abalone shell, sweet-smelling smoke curls skyward from smoldering sage, tobacco, cedar, and sweetgrass – four sacred medicines in Indigenous healing ceremonies. An Algonquin Elder gently brushes the braiding smoke with her hands and offers it to the four directions in a spiritually cleansing practice known as smudging.

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Ontario: Contact councillors — save Ontario’s wastewater monitoring!Image with dark blue background, and white and gold text. Text at the top reads: Ottawa, London, Waterloo Region. Save our early warning system for viruses. Below the text, there is a chart with red text reading: no data.
Topic: take actionView all posts for the topic: take action

Ontario: Contact councillors — save Ontario’s wastewater monitoring!

Published September 10, 2024

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📣 Let municipal councillors know you want funding for wastewater monitoring to continue

✉️ Send letters to municipal councillors to voice your support for wastewater monitoring. Use our online tool to send emails.

Continue readingOntario: Contact councillors — save Ontario’s wastewater monitoring!
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Topic: OntarioView all posts for the topic: Ontario

Ontario dropped wastewater testing early, with no plan for feds to step in: documents

Published September 1, 2024

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Published by: Ottawa Citizen
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By Elizabeth Payne

The Ontario government abruptly ended its wastewater surveillance program earlier than planned this summer, despite having funding in place until the end of September and being warned that the move could leave gaps in crucial information for public health, internal documents indicate.

The government pulled the plug at the end of July on the globally praised program that, at its peak, covered about 75 per cent of the province.

The program, overseen by the Ministry of the Environment, provided an early warning signal to health officials about the spread of COVID-19, influenza, RSV and other infectious diseases, based on wastewater testing.

Documents obtained through access to information by the Ottawa Citizen indicate that the province’s hasty decision last spring to end the program came before Ontario’s Ministry of Health had even begun negotiations with the federal government about taking over wastewater surveillance.

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Topic: Ottawa-GatineauView all posts for the topic: Ottawa-Gatineau

High rates of COVID are causing outbreaks, rising hospitalizations and deaths heading into the school year

Published August 27, 2024

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Published by: Ottawa Citizen
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By Elizabeth Payne

If it seems like many of your friends and neighbours have been sick with COVID this summer, you are not wrong.

Ottawa is experiencing a COVID-19 wave that is sending people to hospital, causing outbreaks in long-term care homes, retirement homes and hospital wards, and even causing deaths among some of the most vulnerable. At least one local hospital has tightened masking requirements following outbreaks there, and Ottawa Public Health is advising students to take precautions when they head back to school, including staying home when sick and wearing masks for their own protection and the protection of others.

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