Councillors in the city of Ottawa are asking for more capacity in their neighborhoods as the number of coronavirus cases continues to increase.
Ottawa Public Health (OPH) reported 17 new coronavirus cases Wednesday after a peak of 36 the day before.
OPH said the number of active coronavirus cases in the city had fallen to 225 since 242 on Tuesday.
No new deaths similar to COVID-19 were reported on Wednesday. There have been 3,151 cases of viruses since the start of the pandemic.
A new outbreak of coronavirus was reported at Hillel Lodge Long-Term Care Home, where a member tested positive for the virus.
Dr. Vera Etches, Ottawa Health Medical Officer, told City Hall Wednesday morning that the map showing citizens of the most affected neighborhoods through COVID-19 has been updated to be more interactive and allow for knowledge filtering in recent weeks.
Another update in the coming weeks will break down knowledge of coronavirus notification across the community than from the community.
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Filtered to show new instances of coronavirus that have occurred in the past 30 days, Beacon Hill-Cyrville reports that the number of citizens tested positive at 47.
West Carleton-March, for its part, has not registered new instances in the following month, a figure of more concern than comforts neighborhood councillor Eli El-Chantiry.
He expressed doubts that there were no instances in his neighborhood, and called for more evidence available in rural areas of the town such as West Carleton-March.
Orleans County Matthew Luloff, who shared his own story of having to be examined for an alert at COVID-19, echoed those calls.
He noted that the recent driving verification site established at RGCT Park on Coventry Road is not available to anyone who does not have a car and stated that the east end, which already shows higher degrees of COVID-19 concentration, wanted more verification options.
“Ottawa Hospital allows us to register in rural and eastern areas,” Luloff said at the council meeting.
Etches expressed concern, but said resources for public verification were limited. He encouraged citizens to contact their number one care providers to see if they can only be offering coronavirus verification outside their offices for greater district verification access than to increase the number of centralized control sites.
“Everyone would like to have better test results,” he says.
A spokesman for Montfort Hospital told Global News Wednesday that the hospital is “actively researching and making perspective plans in the East,” adding that it is working with partners to make sure it has the right resources to run a check center.
After Wednesday’s council meeting, five of Ottawa’s councillors called Cameron Love, executive director of Ottawa Hospital, for more information available on foot in downtown Ottawa.
His letter indicated that even the maximum central control, Array the Brewer Assessment Center, is still a 90-minute bus ride for many citizens of its downtown neighborhood. Heron Gate and Moodie’s are even further away and driving control is not available for pedestrians.
“For many residents, even a bus ride is too expensive and too far away,” the councillors wrote. “The expectation that other people will have to own a car to be reviewed is unreasonable and creates a bias in the verification results. “
The letter signed through Councilors Catherine McKenney, Shawn Menard, Jeff Leiper, Mathieu Fleury, and Rawlson King.