The province has confirmed 51 new deaths in people with COVID-19, making it the second straight day that a grim new record has been reached in terms of fatalities.

The Ministry of Health is also reporting 494 new cases over the last 24 hours.

That is the highest number since a record 550 cases were reported on April 8.

There have now been a total of 385 deaths attributed to the virus provincewide, including 145 at long-term care homes. That number, however, is only accurate as of 4 p.m. one day previous. A count of Ontario’s 34 public health units indicates that as of 12 p.m. there have been 425 deaths in people to confirmed to have the virus.

Meanwhile, the total number of confirmed cases among residents at long-term care homes now stands at 834 while the number of cases among staff is 453.

The alarming statistics came asPremier Doug Ford announced additional precautions to help limit the spread of the virus in long-term care homes, including additional testing.

"We are increasing the testing right across the board and really focusing on the hot spot of long-term care,” he said at a Wednesday afternoon news conference. “Roughly 18 per cent of all homes are infected right now so that is the area we are going to target.”

Speaking Wednesday afternoon, Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams said that of the new cases, more than half were tied to workers and residents in long-term care, leaving about 200 detected in the wider community.

He says that is a good sign.

“Since we’re well below some of the numbers we projected, we have been successful in bending the curve – but how do we compare to other jurisdictions in Canada or elsewhere in the world.”

Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam echoed that feeling, saying there are positive aspects to the nation’s recent case numbers, but nothing can be concretely established yet.

Province completed 6,000 tests over last 24 hours

The number of new cases reported on a daily basis dipped to a recent low of 401 new cases on Sunday but had been trending back upwards in recent days.

The higher number of new cases coincides with the province ramping up its testing efforts.

The province conducted 6,010 tests over the last 24 hours, up from 4,852 one day prior. Officials have previously said that they expected to be completing 8,000 daily tests by today with that number rising to 13,000 by later in the month.

It should be noted, however, that as the province increases testing the backlog of tests waiting to be processed seems to be rising at a faster rate. The number of cases listed as under investigation more than doubled over the last 24 hours, going from 2,107 to 4,429.

Also, going forward the province will be reporting the total number of tests processed, not the number of people tested, as some people are being tested for a second or third time, if they are hospitalized or if they are hospital worker needing to be cleared before returning to work.

“They gave us a guideline, 8,000 (daily tests by today) and we are going to see those numbers tomorrow, at least I hope we see those numbers tomorrow,” Ford said Wednesday. “Numbers don’t lie. I want to see not only the 8,000 but who are the 8,000 that are tested? I just want to see us continuously test, especially in long-term care. We are pretty lucky (with overall numbers) but we cannot ignore the seniors’ residents. We have to put an iron ring around all of the most vulnerable people that are out there.”

Encouragingly, the data does suggest that intensive care units are not yet being inundated with COVID-19 patients. While there are 26 more people in hospital with the virus than there were one day prior (a total of 795), the number of people in intensive care units seems to be holding relatively steady. That number stood at 263 on Monday but dropped to 255 on Tuesday and is now at 254. The number of those people on ventilators is also down over the last 24 hours, going from 199 to 188.

“It does look like we may be flattening out a little bit which is obviously a wonderful sign. But just because we are flattening out doesn’t mean we can get complacent here in Ontario,” infectious disease specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch told CP24 on Wednesday morning. “We are getting between 400 and 500 new cases per day and that is still quite a few new cases. I am glad it is not going up but we have to remember that some people are going to get sick enough to succumb to this illness, especially in long-term care facilities.”

There are now 8,447 confirmed cases in Ontario, including recoveries and deaths.

That number is up 60 per cent from the 5,276 cases the province was reporting at this time last week.

More than 3,900 people have made recoveries from the disease, representing 46 per cent of the provincial total count of cases.

Here are some of the other highlights from the data:

• There are now 896 cases in healthcare workers (about 10.6 per cent of all cases)
• There have been 247 deaths in people aged 80 and above, accounting for about two-thirds of all deaths.
• The total number of people to be hospitalized with the virus at any point stands at 1,072 (12.7 per cent of all cases)
• There are now 98 outbreaks at long-term care homes, up five from one day prior.