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Meanwhile, Dr. Vera Etches of Ottawa Public Health said all 13 cases in Ottawa are travel-related and/or resulting from confirmed contact with someone who had traveled. One person in their 60s who contracted the novel coronavirus through travel is now hospitalized, she added.

Etches estimates there might be between 200 and 1,000 undetected cases in the community.

The city said it’s evaluating whether there’s benefit in calling for a state of emergency “relative to the impact a provincial state of emergency has.”

It’s been more than 24 hours without a new confirmed case of COVID-19 in Ottawa, according to the provincial authority that tracks and releases this information, and only 12 new cases provincewide were confirmed Tuesday night.

Etches said, however, that people should not read too much into the lack of confirmed COVID-19 cases identified Tuesday. “What we might be seeing is the impact of travel restrictions; the impact of some of the messaging that people should avoid non-essential travel. It unfortunately doesn’t mean we expect to see the numbers continue to drop … we have many travellers outside of the country still.” Etches stressed the importance of self-isolation for 14 days upon returning to Canada from travel abroad, including the United States. About 30 per cent of novel coronavirus cases in Ontario now come from people returning from the U.S., Etches said. The effect of social distancing on coronavirus case numbers remains to be seen — this messaging has only ramped up in the last several days — and Etches urged Ottawans to keep up the practice. “By social distancing and self-isolating if you meet the criteria, you could be saving lives … stay home if you are able to.”

Three cases in Kingston were announced Tuesday afternoon. Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox and Addington Public Health said three cases of COVID-19 have been identified. None of them have been hospitalized, and they are self-isolating.

The infected individuals are two women, 44 and 62, as well as one male, 48. All of them were infected while travelling outside the country to countries such as Spain, Barbados and the United Kingdom.

Ontario has enacted emergency measures that will shut down many aspects of social and cultural life in the province for at least two weeks, in an effort to further contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The Ontario government updates a dedicated COVID-19 website twice daily, with new confirmed cases posted at 10:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m.

Monday morning saw three new cases in Ottawa, for a total of 13, and bringing Ontario’s tally to 183 cases – though five had been resolved.