Ottawa Residents Tested for COVID-19 by ONS Neighbourhood

<div><div style='text-indent:-24px;'><div style='text-indent:0px;'><font size='3'>COVID-19 testing rates and percent positivity, excluding long-term care home (LTCH) residents, by Ottawa Neighbourhood Study neighbourhoods. Data are a compilation of data extracted weekly by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) from iPHIS Plus and Public Health Ontario's COVID-19 laboratory data (Chung H. et al., 2021).</font></div><div style='text-indent:0px;'><font size='3'><br /></font></div><div style='text-indent:0px;'><font size='3'><b>Date created:</b></font></div><div style='text-indent:0px;'><font size='3'><b><br /></b></font></div><div style='text-indent:0px;'><font size='3'>Data effective May 2021. Uploaded to Open Data on May 30, 2021.</font></div><div style='text-indent:0px;'><font size='3'><br /></font></div><div style='text-indent:0px;'><font size='3'><b>Update frequency:</b> Monthly</font></div><div style='text-indent:0px;'><font size='3'><br /></font></div><div style='text-indent:0px;'><font size='3'><b>Accuracy - Points of consideration for interpretation of the data:</b></font></div><div style='text-indent:0px;'><font size='3'><br /></font></div><div style='text-indent:0px;'><ul><li><font size='3'>Testing data were compiled by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) and are based on information extracted from iPHIS Plus and Public Health Ontario's COVID-19 laboratory data (Chung H, Fung K, Ishiguro L, Paterson M, et al. Characteristics of COVID-19 diagnostic test recipients, Applied Health Research Questions (AHRQ) # 2021 0950 080 000. Toronto: Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences; 2020). Data are updated monthly and are provided by IC/ES as weekly counts. Monthly aggregates are based on the start date of weekly counts.</font></li><li><font size='3'>Individuals who have testing episodes on multiple days in a weekly testing period are only counted once per week. Those who have both negative and positive test results within a weekly testing period are considered positive. </font></li><li><font size='3'>Any and all testing episodes after an individual's first confirmed positive COVID-19 test (since 15 January 2020) are excluded from subsequent weekly counts (both numerator and denominator). </font></li><li><font size='3'>Testing date represents the date of specimen collection. Due to the time required for transportation and processing of specimens, it takes 6 days for approximately 95% of results to be finalized and reported for a given testing date. </font></li><li><font size='3'>Tested individuals include those whose result is confirmed positive, negative, indeterminate, or pending. </font></li><li><font size='3'>For individuals confirmed positive using their record in the Ontario Ministry of Health integrated Public Health Information System (iPHIS), their public health unit (PHU) assignment was based on their diagnosing PHU. For all others, PHU assignment was based on the postal code in RPDB as of the testing date. The current Registered Persons Database (RPDB), which has basic demographic information on anyone who has ever received an Ontario health card number, is updated up to 30 April 2021.</font></li><li><font size='3'>Only COVID-19 testing by standard polymerase chain reaction are reported. Tests done by other methods, such as rapid point-of-care, are excluded.</font></li><li><font size='3'>Rates and percent positivity calculated from very low case counts, or for small populations, are unstable and should be interpreted with caution. For this reason, testing rates and percent positivity are not presented for neighbourhoods with populations of less than 2000 persons or when counts (i.e. total number tested or total number tested positive) are between 1-6 for a given neighbourhood.</font></li><li><font size='3'>Confirmed cases are those with a confirmed COVID-19 laboratory result as per the Ministry of Health Public health management of cases and contacts of COVID-19 in Ontario. March 25, 2020 version 6.0.</font></li><li><font size='3'>The province has had to limit testing to priority groups in the early stages of the pandemic. Since only a small fraction of all the persons who were infected with the COVID-19 virus were tested, the number of reported confirmed community cases underestimates the actual number of infections. Information on overall infection rates in Canada will not be available until large studies on COVID-19 antibody presence in blood serum are conducted. Based on available information, the actual number of infections may lie from 5 to 30 times or more than the reported number of cases (1). </font></li><li><font size='3'>Surveillance testing for COVID-19 began in long term care facilities on April 25, 2020.</font></li></ul></div><div style='text-indent:0px;'><font size='3'><br /></font></div><div style='text-indent:0px;'><font size='3'><i>Reference: </i></font></div><div style='text-indent:0px;'><font size='3'><i>1. Richterich P. Severe underestimation of COVID-19 case numbers: Effect of epidemic growth rate and test restrictions. medRxiv. April 2020: 2020.04.13. doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.13.20064220</i></font></div><div style='text-indent:0px;'><font size='3'><br /></font></div><div style='text-indent:0px;'><font size='3'><b>Attributes - Data Fields:</b></font></div><div style='text-indent:0px;'><ul><li><font size='3'>ONS ID – Ottawa Neighbourhood Study (ONS) neighbourhood identification number.</font></li><li><font size='3'>ONS Name – ONS neighbourhood name.</font></li><li><font size='3'>Month – The year and month of data, based on the start date of weekly counts.</font></li><li><font size='3'>Testing rate (per 1000 population), excluding LTCH residents – number of Ottawa residents tested for COVID-19 during the month of interest, excluding LTCH residents, divided by the total population of that neighbourhood and multiplied by 1000.</font></li><li><font size='3'>% Positivity (Excluding LTCH) – number of Ottawa residents tested for COVID-19 during the month of interest that received a positive test result divided by the total number of Ottawa residents tested during that month. Both the numerator and the denominator exclude LTCH residents.</font></li></ul></div><div style='text-indent:0px;'><font size='3'><br /></font></div><div style='text-indent:0px;'><font size='3'><br /></font></div><div style='text-indent:0px;'><font size='3'><br /></font></div><div style='font-style:italic; text-indent:0px;'><font size='3'><br /></font></div></div><div style='text-indent:-24px;'><font size='3'><br /></font></div></div><div style='text-indent:-24px;'><font size='3'><br /></font></div>