Ontario set a new standalone, single-day record for coronavirus cases with 3,945 on Sunday, along with 61 new deaths, as the province’s cumulative death toll approaches 5,000.
“Locally, there are 1,160 new cases in Toronto, 641 in Peel, 357 in York Region, 223 in Windsor-Essex County and 220 in Waterloo,” Health Minister Christine Elliott wrote on Twitter.
Sunday’s total is a standalone, single-day record for the province, beating the previous record set just on Friday.
Ontario reported more than 3,400 infections on Saturday, and 4,249 cases on Friday, but more than 450 of those were from earlier in the month.
Meanwhile, Toronto Mayor John Tory urged the Ford government to “get on with it,” when it came to enacting new public health measures.
“If it’s not today, then tomorrow,” he said.
The Ford government plans to release updated modelling, which includes projections top health officials and Premier Doug Ford say are “scary.”
They will also release new public health measures on that day.
There have now been 4,983 deaths due to COVID-19 in the province since early March, with more than 30,000 cases now considered active and 180,720 recoveries.
Twenty-one of the sixty-one deaths involved residents of the long-term care system.
At least 333 people have died of novel coronavirus infection in the past week.
Meanwhile, hospitalizations due to infection continue to climb.
There were 1,483 people in hospital due to infection on Sunday morning. Of those, 405 were in intensive care, according to a senior Toronto hospital official citing Critical Care Services Ontario’s daily report.
Two-hundred and sixty-six people were breathing with the help of a ventilator, up 22 patients from yesterday.
The number of hospitalized patients due to COVID-19 has increased 48 per cent in the past two weeks.
Provincial labs processed 62,308 test specimens in the past 24 hours, about 10,000 fewer than the previous period.
The results generated a positivity rate of 6.2 per cent.
Another 39,000 specimens awaited analysis on Sunday.
Elsewhere in the GTA, Durham Region reported 190 new COVID-19 cases, Halton Region reported 118 new infections and Hamilton reported 64 new cases.
There are now active outbreaks of COVID-19 in 248 of the province’s 626 long-term care homes.
The pace of vaccinations held steady over the past 24 hours.
Ontario officials said 9,983 more doses of COVID-19 vaccine were administered, bringing the total to 113,246, with 5,884 people having completed the full 21 or 28-day two shot cycle to complete their inoculation.
The government does not publish data on how many doses of vaccine it has received, but independent trackers say Ontario had about 83,000 doses remaining in stock as of Sunday.
