{"id":52764,"date":"2020-04-08T13:19:22","date_gmt":"2020-04-08T17:19:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/?p=52764"},"modified":"2020-05-13T13:53:16","modified_gmt":"2020-05-13T17:53:16","slug":"new-covid-19-projections-show-how-physical-distancing-can-make-a-huge-difference-in-ottawa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/uncategorized\/new-covid-19-projections-show-how-physical-distancing-can-make-a-huge-difference-in-ottawa\/","title":{"rendered":"New COVID-19 projections show how physical distancing can make a huge difference in Ottawa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Researchers from The Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa, in partnership with Ottawa Public Health, have created a new interactive Ottawa COVID-19 Opens in new window<\/span><\/i><\/a> website, that predicts various scenarios around the number of hospitalizations and deaths in Ottawa due to COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCreating accurate, long-range projections to\npredict growth of COVID-19 is difficult. It\u2019s akin to forecasting where a hurricane\nwill make landfall when it is still thousands of kilometers out at sea.\nForecasts are more accurate for the shorter range,\u201d said Dr. Doug Manuel, who\nled the team that developed the projections. \u201cBut while path of a hurricane can\u2019t\nbe influenced, the worst effects of COVID-19 can be avoided if people follow public\nhealth guidelines and stay home.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur projections align with the provincial\nestimates<\/a> that project a 97% reduction in deaths with\nfull implementation of physical distancing,\u201d added Dr. Manuel, a physician and\nsenior scientist at The Ottawa Hospital and distinguished professor at the\nUniversity of Ottawa, who also holds appointments at Bruy\u00e8re Research Institute\nand ICES. \u201cWe also include projections for hospital use for Ottawa at different\nlevels of physical distancing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new website will be regularly updated with\ndata from Ottawa Public Health, and will be used by hospitals and other health\ncare facilities in the region to plan resources such as intensive care beds and\nventilators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cModelling data confirms that we can all make a difference, if we\ncontinue to practice physical distancing. The actions we are all taking as a\ncommunity matter. I am grateful that, for the most part, Ottawa residents acted\nquickly, and followed public health guidance. There would be more cases of\nCOVID-19 infections in our community if residents had not done their part. We\nare all in this together, and need to continue our efforts to continue to\nflatten the curve, and protect our healthcare system\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The predictive modelling approach used by Dr. Manuel and his team<\/a> for COVID-19 builds on similar approaches developed by other researchers in Ontario and around the world. Dr. Manuel and his team have previously used big data and artificial intelligence to develop several widely-used interactive health calculators, available at the Project Big Life Opens in new window<\/span><\/i><\/a> website. The team behind the Ottawa COVID-19 modelling approach includes Warsame Yusuf, Rostyslav Vyuha, Yulric Sequeira and Alan Forster, in addition to Doug Manuel. From the Ottawa Public Health epidemiology team, contributors include Jacqueline Willmore, Amira Ali, and Dara Spatz Friedman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Media Contact:
<\/strong>Michaela Schreiter <\/p>\n\n\n\n

mschreiter@toh.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Researchers from The Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa, in partnership with Ottawa Public Health, have created a new interactive Ottawa COVID-19 Opens in new window website, that predicts various scenarios around the number of hospitalizations and deaths in Ottawa due to COVID-19. \u201cCreating accurate, long-range projections to predict growth of COVID-19 is difficult. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":52780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsroom","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}