July 12 COVID-19 update: City celebrates no new cases, Feds donating 18 million vaccines

OTTAWA – Ottawa celebrated a huge milestone today (July 12) as Ottawa Public Health (OPH) celebrates the first day in more than 16 months with no new COVID-19 cases reported by the health organization.

this is the first time this has happened since March 11, 2020, a full week before the pandemic was officially declared in Canada.

There have been 27,729 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus in Ottawa (27,102 resolved) since the first reported case back on March 9, 2020.

As of Monday, there have been 592 COVID-19-related deaths in Ottawa. OPH has reported just one death due to the virus in the last three weeks.

There are still two people in local hospitals with COVID-19 and OPH says it knows of 35 active cases in the community.

The health unit says there are ongoing COVID-19 outbreaks at a local shelter and a group home, affecting a total of six people.

Ottawa’s weekly COVID-19 incidence rate is down to three per 100,000 residents today.

The local positivity rate is 0.9 per cent.

The City of Ottawa has administered 92 per cent of the 1,132,732 COVID-19 vaccine doses it’s received to date. The city received its largest vaccine shipment of 156,162 shots last week, which included 23,400 Pfizer doses and the rest Moderna. The largest previous shipment of 118,780 happened on June 13.

First-dose figures haven’t changed much between Friday and Monday in Ottawa, with 81 per cent of residents over the age of 12 having received their first vaccines. 

Second-dose numbers continue to climb, however, with nearly half a million residents fully vaccinated. OPH says 54 per cent of all residents 12 and up have been fully immunized against COVID-19. The double-dose number goes up to 57 per cent when only including residents over 18.

Ontario is reporting 114 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, with no deaths linked to the virus.

Feds donating nearly 18 million doses

CANADA – The federal government is donating 17.7 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and asking Canadians to give their own money to help other countries get needles in arms.

Procurement Minister Anita Anand says after talking to provinces, it was determined these COVID-19 doses to be excess supply.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau previously pledged Canada would give back 13 million shots it was set to receive through a contract with the global vaccine-sharing alliance COVAX. 

Canada is on track to receive 68 million doses by the end of July, which would be enough to inoculate most Canadians.

The Liberal government also announced it would match donations Canadians make to a UNICEF fundraising campaign called Give a Vax, for a contribution of up to $10 million. 

David Morley, head of UNICEF Canada, says the money raised will pay for transportation and some of the other logistical needs required to deliver vaccines to people.

International Development Minister Karina Gould says she heard Canadians want to help be part of the global COVID-19 vaccination effort. 

“As Canadians are hearing more about the Delta and the Lambda variant, recognizing if the pandemic continues to rage in other parts of the world, that’s more opportunities for variants and mutations to emerge,” Gould said in a recent interview.  “We are now in a position where we can start to pivot excess (vaccine) doses that won’t be needed for the Canadian population lower- and lower middle-income countries.”