Ontario health officials confirmed 43 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Thursday with a second confirmed death. The provincial total jumped to 251 active cases.
In an update Thursday afternoon, Halton Region Public Health confirmed a second COVID-19 related death in Ontario. The man was in his 50s and had an underlying health condition.
Dr. Barbara Yaffe, the province’s associate chief medical officer of health, said the man didn’t have any known connection to a case of COVID-19 and didn’t have a recent travel history.
Yaffe didn’t call the case an instance of community transmission, but said the investigation remains ongoing.
Of the confirmed cases in the province, 22 are hospitalized, Yaffe added.
A man in his 80s from Durham is listed on Ontario’s website as being hospitalized. Some patients are self-isolating and others are listed as “pending.”
Some patients had a travel history to Spain, Belgium, Canary Islands, Finland, Malta, Germany, the U.S., England, San Juan, Manila, Europe in general, or were on a cruise. Others were listed as having contracted the virus through close contact with an infected person.
Form of transmission for most patients were listed as “pending.”
Patients on Thursday’s list are from Toronto, Durham, Ottawa, Halton Region, Peel Region, Hamilton, Waterloo, Haliburton-Kawartha, and Eastern Ontario. Twenty-two of the new patients did not have a Public Health Unit region listed.
The province has five resolved cases and two deaths. More than 16,000 people have been tested for COVID-19 so far. There are just under 4,000 cases under investigation.
The last time Ontario saw a large single-day jump like this was on March 15 with 42 cases.
However, Yaffe said she believes most Ontarians are complying with recent government recommendations.
“We’re very pleased with the excellent compliance of the public with social distancing,” she said in an afternoon update from Queen’s Park.
“We’re just talking about being the fourth largest city in North America and if you go out, it’s almost like a ghost town.”