Canada reported an additional 1,778 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus on Monday, as well as 99 deaths.
The numbers, which were reported through updates from provincial health authorities across the country, bring Canada’s total confirmed cases of COVID-19 to 36,823.
As of April 20, a total of 1,690 deaths have also been linked to the virus while more than 12,500 people across the country have recovered.
Both Quebec and Ontario remained the highest in reporting both new cases and deaths.
Health officials in Quebec, the epicentre of Canada’s COVID-19 outbreak, announced 62 new deaths on Monday that were linked to the virus. The province now has an overall 19,319 confirmed cases as well as 939 deaths.
Quebec Premier François Legault also requested more help for the province’s hard-hit long-term care facilities on Monday, even as hundreds of Canadian Armed Forces personnel and health-care professionals flocked to the province to help last weekend.
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“Our national emergency is what is happening in our CHSLDs, our residences,” said Legault.
The province is now delaying all non-urgent care in hospitals to allow more health-care workers to aid in seniors residences.
Ontario also reported its largest single-day increase in cases with 606 new cases of the virus on Monday. The new cases, which include an additional 31 deaths, bring the province’s total infections to 11,184.
The increase, however, came alongside new projections from health officials suggesting that the province had already peaked in community case spread.
“Projections now show Ontario’s COVID-19 outbreak behaving more like best case,” the report said.
Adalsteinn (Steini) Brown, the Dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, warned that while community spread of the virus had peaked, cases in the province’s nursing and long-term care homes appeared to continue in growth.
Monday’s update in cases comes amid new plans for the federal government to meet during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The plan, which will see 32 MPs meet every Wednesday starting this week, was struck in agreement between the NDP, Bloc Québécois and the Liberals. The Conservatives, however, opposed.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also made a vow to change the nation’s policies on how personal protective equipment (PPE) from the national stockpile would be handled after its expiry date.
The promise came amid news of over two million N95 respirator masks and thousands of other PPE being thrown out in 2019 because they had expired five years earlier.
More to come…
— With files from the Canadian Press and Global News reporter Amanda Connolly, Kalina Laframbroise and Gabby Rodrigues.
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