Ontario reports new single-day record of almost 1,400 new coronavirus cases

Ontario reported 1,388 new cases of coronavirus on Tuesday, another new single-day record, bringing the provincial total to 86,783.

Tuesday’s case count beats out Sunday’s original one-day record of 1,328 new cases, while Monday saw 1,242 cases.

This is also the fifth straight day daily case counts have been above 1,000.

Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott said 520 new cases were recorded in Toronto, 395 in Peel Region, 100 in York Region, 72 in Halton Region, and 50 in Niagara.

All other public health units in Ontario reported under 50 new cases.

The death toll in the province has risen to 3,260 as 15 more deaths were reported.

More than 29,100 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. The government has previously said it hoped to increase testing capacity to 50,000 per day by mid-October, and 68,000 tests per day by mid-November.

There is currently a backlog of 27,802 tests that need results. A total of 5,440,104 tests have been completed since the pandemic began.

Meanwhile, 73,417 Ontarians have recovered from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, which is 85 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 781 from the previous day. Active cases in Ontario now stand at 10,106.

Ontario has 422 people hospitalized due to COVID-19 (up by 55 from the previous day), with 82 patients in an intensive care unit (down by two) and 54 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (unchanged). Hospitalizations have overall steadily increased over the past several weeks.

Here is a breakdown of the total cases in Ontario by gender and age:

• 41,839 people are male — an increase of 650 cases.
• 44,515 people are female — an increase of 734 cases.
• 9,574 people are 19 and under — an increase of 213 cases.
• 31,353 people are 20 to 39 — an increase of 501 cases.
• 24,731 people are 40 to 59 — an increase of 400 cases.
• 12,835 people are 60 to 79 — an increase of 184 cases.
• 8,279 people are 80 and over — an increase of 91 cases.

The province notes that not all cases have a reported age or gender.

The province also notes that the number of cases publicly reported each day may not align with case counts reported by the local public health unit on a given day. Local public health units report when they were first notified of a case, which can be updated and changed as information becomes available.

The newly reported numbers for Tuesday’s report are valid as of Monday afternoon.

Ontario long-term care homes

According to the Ministry of Long-Term Care, there have been 2,017 deaths reported among residents and patients in long-term care homes across Ontario which is an increase of 12 deaths. Eight health-care workers and staff in long-term care homes have died which has remained unchanged for months.

There are 95 current outbreaks in homes, a decrease of one.

The ministry also indicated there are currently 647 active cases among long-term care residents and 399 active cases among staff — up by 22 cases for residents and unchanged for staff since the previous day.

Ontario child care centres and schools

Meanwhile, government figures show there have been a total of 2,865 school-related COVID-19 cases in Ontario — 1,626 among students and 363 among staff (876 individuals were not identified). This is an increase of 159 more cases from the previous day.

In the last 14 days, the province indicates there are 547 cases reported among students and 98 cases among staff (291 individuals were not identified) — totaling 936 cases.

The COVID-19 cases are currently from 601 out of 4,828 schools in the province.

Three schools in Ontario are currently closed as a result of positive cases, the government indicated.

There have been a total of 528 confirmed cases within child care centres and homes — an increase of 22 (13 new child cases and nine staff cases.) Out of 5,242 child care centres in Ontario, 120 currently have cases and 22 centres are closed.

Numbers for cases in schools and child care centres is updated weekdays only, at 10:30 a.m.