Ontario sees slight uptick with 361 new COVID-19 cases, 56 more deaths

Dr. Sharkawy urges more restrictions as cases rise Infectious diseases specialist Dr. Abdu Sharkawy discusses new measures governments should take to curb the spread of COVID-19.

TORONTO — Ontario health officials logged 361 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday and confirmed 56 more deaths.

The new patients bring the province’s total number of confirmed cases to 20,907, including 1,725 deaths and 15,391 recoveries.

Ontario has recently been seeing a downward trend in the number of new cases reported each day. Provincial health officials recorded 346 new cases on Saturday, which was the lowest daily number since April 6, then 294 new cases were logged on Sunday and 308 on Monday.

There are currently 1,025 people infected with the novel coronavirus in Ontario hospitals. Of those patients, 192 of them are being treated in the intensive care unit.

According to Tuesday’s epidemiological summary, seven of Ontario’s deceased patients were between the ages of 20 and 39. There have been no deaths recorded in people 19 years of age or younger. Seventy-two of all deceased patients in the province were between the ages of 40 and 59 and 427 people were between the ages of 60 and 79. People 80 years of age or older has been the hardest hit age group with 1,219 deaths.

There have been 245 outbreaks of COVID-19 at long-term care homes in Ontario. That is an increase of six since Monday’s report.

In Ontario, 3,485 health-care workers have become infected with the disease.

Quick facts on all Ontario COVID-19 patients:

COVID-19 testing in Ontario

Across the province, thus far, 459,921 novel coronavirus tests have been conducted.

Approximately 11,957 tests were conducted in the last-recorded 24-hour period.

Premier Doug Ford was asked about not reaching the province’s current goal of 20,000 tests per day during his news conference on Tuesday afternoon at Queen’s Park.

“I’m pushing as much as I possibly can,” he said. “I do appreciate the work of the public health units and the health table, but our target is 20,000, we came close the other day, but I also have to remind everyone that we are leading the country now in tests overall and per capita, we are going to continue on this pass, we are one of the leaders in testing globally, worldwide, per capita.”

“But, I don’t believe in excuses, I believe in hitting the numbers, so we want to hit 20,000. We have everything that we need, we need to hit 20,000 and that’s our target. I hear your frustration – I’m not disagreeing with you. We will get there.”

There are currently 10,811 test samples that remain under investigation in Ontario.

It is worth noting that the number of tests completed by the province is not representative of the total number of people tested, meaning one person may have been tested more than once.