Ontario is reporting a spike in new COVID-19 infections today, with more than 50 new cases in Windsor alone.
Provincial public health officials said 195 new cases of the virus were reported today, nearly double the number of new cases confirmed in the previous report (103).
With 165 new cases confirmed on Wednesday, 203 on Tuesday, and 135 on Monday, the rolling five-day average of new cases in Ontario now stands at 160.
“Locally, 26 of 34 (public health units) are reporting five or fewer cases, with 15 of them reporting no new cases. There are 27 new cases in Ottawa and 57 new cases in Windsor-Essex,” Ontario Health Minister Elliott tweeted on Friday.
Thirty-one new cases were reported in Toronto today, 18 were reported in Peel Region, and eight were reported by York Region Public Health.
While Toronto, Peel, and Windsor all remain in Stage 2 of the province’s reopening plan, Ottawa and most other regions in the province have already been given the green light to enter Stage 3, which permits municipalities to reopen gyms and restaurants for indoor dining.
Multiple GTA mayors have expressed concern over the reopening indoor spaces at bars and restaurants due to clusters of cases in other cities that have been linked to indoor dining.
Public health officials have noted that the risk of contracting the virus is significantly higher in indoor spaces.
Elliott noted Friday that 66 per cent (128) of today’s cases are in people under the age of 40, indicating that the rate of new infections continues to be much higher in younger members of the population.
Recoveries are also falling behind new infections once again.
The province said Friday that only 137 more cases moved over to the resolved column in the past 24 hours, resulting in 55 more active cases today.
Of the 38,405 lab-confirmed cases of the virus in Ontario, 1,547 are still considered to be active.
Hospitalizations are down today following an uptick of COVID-19 patients in Ontario hospitals earlier this week.
There are now 141 people hospitalized with the virus, down from 154 one day prior.
Of those hospitalized with COVID-19, 31 are in intensive care and 20 are on ventilators.
Three more deaths were reported today, bringing the total number of virus-related deaths in the province to 2,758.
No new outbreaks were reported in long-term care homes in the past 24 hours.
Testing numbers remain high with nearly 29,000 tests processed over the past 24 hours, putting the case positivity rate at 0.6 per cent.
New cases in the GTA:
Toronto: 31
Peel: 18
York: 8
Durham: 4
Halton: 3
