Coronavirus caseload in Canada increases by 380 while Atlantic provinces see no new cases

Canada reported nearly 400 coronavirus cases and 20 COVID-19-related deaths in the last 24 hours.

The new numbers bring the national tally to more than 102,600 confirmed cases of COVID-19 — the bulk of them in Ontario and Quebec — and a death toll of 8,504.

More than 65,000 people are considered recovered across the country, as active cases number a little over 28,500.

Ontario saw 189 new cases and 10 fatalities on Thursday. The province now has more than 34,000 cases, including more than 2,600 deaths and close to 30,000 recoveries.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Thursday he doesn’t want to see the Canada-U.S. border reopened once the current closure expires on July 21.

“You see what’s happening down in the states, you look at Florida, you look at Texas, Arizona, California — I don’t want to be those states,” he said. Earlier this week, a number of states set single-day records for COVID-19 cases.

Quebec reported 142 new cases on Thursday — more than double the 53 cases reported a day earlier — bringing its total to more than 55,000 cases. The province also recorded six new deaths in the past 24 hours, leaving its death toll at just under 5,500 fatalities.

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This week, Quebec took a step towards becoming the only province to start weekly COVID-19 updates as of July 2, instead of daily ones.

Ontario and Quebec, the country’s most populous provinces, have consistently been the regions reporting the most number of cases and deaths for months, with numbers trending downward in recent weeks.

Alberta remains a distant third in terms of overall caseload and death toll in Canada, with a little more than 7,800 cases of COVID-19 and 154 deaths so far. On Thursday, the province reported 26 new cases and one new death.

British Columbia reported 19 lab-confirmed cases and two new deaths. One of the new cases is a public school teacher — the second such case connected to schools since B.C. reopened classrooms on June 1. The province currently has nearly 2,900 cases and 173 deaths.

Saskatchewan saw three new cases, for a total of 759 cases. It also reported its highest hospitalization rate for COVID-19 since May, with nine people in hospital. Thirteen people have died since the pandemic began.

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Manitoba’s curve has remained relatively flat for a while now, with just one new case reported Thursday. The province has seen 305 cases in total and seven deaths since the pandemic began. It is now examining how schools might be able to reopen in September.

Atlantic provinces

All four Atlantic provinces had no new cases or deaths to report on Thursday.

As of July 3, travel restrictions in the region were set to ease, allowing interprovincial travel between all four Atlantic provinces without self-isolation.

Nova Scotia is set to announce further reopening measures on Friday. It has seen no new cases for 16 days straight, and currently has zero active cases. More than 60 people have died in the province, which has seen more than 1,000 cases since the pandemic began.

New Brunswick has seen 149 of 165 cases recover from the virus, while two people have died. Newfoundland and Labrador has no active cases. Three people have died out of 261 cases.

Prince Edward Island, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon have seen all their cases resolved for some weeks now. Nunavut remains the only region in Canada with no confirmed case of COVID-19 reported so far.

Numbers tallied by Johns Hopkins University show the coronavirus has resulted in more than 9.5 million cases around the world and more than 486,000 deaths, with the highest caseload and death toll in the U.S. followed by Brazil.

— With files by The Canadian Press, Global News staff