Ontario records slight uptick in new COVID-19 cases

Ontario records slight spike in COVID-19 cases As most of the province has now entered Stage 2 of the restart phase, Ontario is seeing a slight uptick in new COVID-19 cases.

TORONTO — Following six days of daily COVID-19 case counts being below 200 in the province, Ontario is now seeing a slight uptick.

Health officials logged 206 new patients infected with the novel coronavirus on Saturday morning, bringing the provincial total number of cases to 33,301.

“While this is the first time the province is reporting a daily new case count above 200 in six days, we shouldn’t draw too many conclusions from one day’s data,” Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott wrote on Twitter.

The province confirmed 31 more deaths on Saturday, bringing the provincial death toll to 2,595. That is the highest number of new deaths recorded in a single day since June 6 and represents a significant increase on the five-day rolling average of 13.6 deaths.

As well, 218 more cases in the province were considered to be resolved as of Saturday, bringing the provincial total number of recovered patients to 28,468.

There are currently 333 COVID-19 patients receiving treatment in Ontario hospitals. Of those patients, 80 of them are in the intensive care unit and 63 of those 80 patients remain on a ventilator.

Where are the new COVID-19 cases?

Of the 206 new patients logged on Saturday, 71 are in Toronto, 54 are in Peel Region and six are in Windsor-Essex.

On Friday, all of Ontario’s 34 local public health unit regions were allowed to move to Stage 2 of the province’s restart phase except Toronto, Peel Region and Windsor-Essex.

As well, York Region recorded 10 new cases on Saturday, Simcoe Muskoka recorded 12, Waterloo Region recorded 10 and Haldimand-Norfolk recorded 11.

All other local public health units in the province recorded less than 10 new cases.

COVID-19 testing in Ontario

Thus far, more than one million novel coronavirus tests have been conducted throughout Ontario.

Daily testing numbers remain high with 27,387 being conducted within the last-recorded 24-hour period. That is the second highest total yet and only trails the 28,335 tests turned around on June 11.

Currently, 16,963 tests for COVID-19 remain under investigation in the province.