Ontario reports one-day spike in new COVID-19 deaths and cases

Paramedics arrive at the Rockcliffe Care Community in Toronto on Sunday November 15, 2020. The residence has had over 200 residents and staff test positive for COVID-19 with 7 deaths. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn

TORONTO — Ontario health officials are reporting another spike in deaths related to COVID-19 and more than 1,400 new infections in the province.

Health officials added 1,417 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Wednesday. The new cases come after a single-day drop on Tuesday, when the province recorded 1,248 cases of the disease.

This is the 13th straight day in which Ontario has reported case counts in the quadruple digits.

The province also reported that 32 more people have died due to COVID-19. It’s the highest number of deaths reported in a single day since the second wave began.

Seniors continue to be the age group hardest hit by the pandemic. According to the province’s epidemiology report, 26 of the 32 deaths recorded on Wednesday were long-term care home residents.

Since the pandemic started, of the 3,415 people who have died in Ontario due to the disease, 2,367 were over the age of 80.

There are at least 535 people currently in Ontario hospitals due to COVID-19, and 127 of those patients are in an intensive care unit. Seventy-eight of them are breathing with the assistance of a ventilator.

The province has previously said that once there are more than 150 COVID-19 patients in the ICU, other non-COVID-19 care and scheduled surgeries may be impacted.

The total number of lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ontario now stands at 98,162, including the 3,415 deaths and 81,925 recoveries.

Where are the COVID-19 cases in Ontario?

Toronto reported 410 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, while Peel Region reported 463 new infections and York Region logged 178. Ottawa reported 22 new cases.

Other public health units that reported more than 10 cases of COVID-19 include Durham Region (40), Simcoe-Muskoka (25), Windsor (17), Hamilton (54), Halton Region (63), Waterloo region (42) and Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph (23), and Thunder Bay (20).

Most of the new cases of COVID-19 reported Wednesday are in people under the age of 80.

There were 548 infections in people between the ages of 20 and 39, at least 414 in people between the ages of 40 and 59 and 207 in people between the ages of 60 and 79. There were 199 cases in people under the age of 19.

COVID-19 testing in Ontario

Officials processed 33,440 COVID-19 tests in the last 24 hours. The ministry of health said the province’s positivity rate now stands at about 4.5 per cent when including duplicate tests and errors.

There are 36,671 COVID-19 tests still under investigation.

In total, Ontario has processed more than 5.7 million tests.