Ontario reports new record of more than 1,800 coronavirus cases, highest number of tests conducted

Ontario reported 1,855 new cases of coronavirus on Friday — a new provincial record since the pandemic began — as the total now reaches 111,216.

Friday’s case count beats the previous single-day high of 1,589 cases recorded on Monday.

According to Friday’s provincial report, 517 cases were recorded in Peel Region, 494 in Toronto, 189 in York Region, 130 in Halton Region, 82 in Hamilton and 74 in Waterloo Region.

All other public health units in Ontario reported under 70 new cases.

The death toll in the province has risen to 3,595 as 20 more deaths were reported.

Ontario has 541 people hospitalized due to COVID-19 (down by 15 from the previous day), with 151 patients in an intensive care unit (unchanged) and 101 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (down by four). Hospitalizations have overall steadily increased over the past several weeks.

The government said 58,037 tests were processed in the last 24 hours — also the highest number of tests ever completed. The previous high for tests within 24 hours was on Oct. 8 with 48,488 tests.

The government previously said it hoped to increase testing capacity to 68,000 per day by mid-November.

There is currently a backlog of 54,241 tests that need results. A total of 6,126,465 tests have been completed since the pandemic began.

Meanwhile, 94,366 Ontarians have recovered from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, which is 85 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 1,451 from the previous day.

Active cases in Ontario now stand at 13,255, up from the previous day at 12,871.

The seven-day average is now at 1,489 which is higher than last Friday’s at 1,373.

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

• 54,013 people are male — an increase of 962 cases.
• 56,559 people are female — an increase of 870 cases.
• 13,199 people are 19 and under — an increase of 278 cases.
• 40,475 people are 20 to 39 — an increase of 686 cases.
• 31,753 people are 40 to 59 — an increase of 564 cases.
• 16,224 people are 60 to 79 — an increase of 249 cases.
• 9,554 people are 80 and over — an increase of 77 cases.

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

The newly reported numbers for Friday’s report are valid as of Thursday afternoon.

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Ontario long-term care homes

According to the Ministry of Long-Term Care, there have been 2,202 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 106 current outbreaks in homes, a decrease of two.

The ministry also indicated there are currently 516 active cases among long-term care residents and 422 active cases among staff — down by 27 cases and down by seven cases respectively in the last day.

Ontario child care centres and schools

Meanwhile, government figures show there have been a total of 4,470 school-related COVID-19 cases in Ontario — 2,769 among students and 614 among staff (1,087 individuals were not identified). This is an increase of 122 more cases over a 24-hour period.

In the last 14 days, the province indicates there are 908 cases reported among students and 206 cases among staff (66 individuals were not identified) — totaling 1,180 cases.

The COVID-19 cases are currently from 671 out of 4,828 schools in the province.

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

There have been a total of 748 confirmed cases within child care centres and homes — an increase of 15 (11 child cases and four staff cases.) Out of 5,249 child care centres in Ontario, 132 currently have cases and 15 centres are closed.

Numbers for cases in schools and child care centres are updated weekdays only, at 10:30 a.m. On Friday’s, numbers are included from Wednesday afternoon to Thursday afternoon.