Waterloo Public Health reported a record number of new COVID-19 cases in the area for the third time in eight days.
“With our dashboard update today of 88 new cases, we continue to see increases in our average number of new cases per day,” Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang, the region’s medical officer of health said.
“As previously mentioned, I expect numbers to get worse in the shorter term.
“They will only get better if we as a community work together and dramatically reduce our non-essential social interactions immediately.
There have now been 3,751 COVID-19 cases in the area since the first case was recorded in March.
On Saturday, there were 86 new positive tests reported, which broke a milestone of 78 established on Nov. 25.
Wang also reported that a woman in her 70s with underlying conditions suffered a COVID-19-related death, lifting the death toll in Waterloo Region to 126. The victim was in hospital at the time of her death.
“I am deeply saddened to be reporting of another death in our community where COVID-19 is thought to have been a contributing factor,” Wang said. “I wish to express my deepest condolences to the family and loved ones.”
Another 81 people were also cleared of the virus, lifting the total number of resolved cases to 3,057.
The number of active cases now sits at 560. Of those, 10 people are currently in intensive care with another 23 also being hospitalized.
The City of Cambridge reported a new outbreak on Tuesday after two firefighters from one fire hall tested positive for the coronavirus.
No other new outbreaks were reported on Wednesday by Waterloo Public Health, although two have been declared over.
The outbreak related to the dance class and the one at Centennial Public School in Waterloo are both over, leaving Waterloo Region with 24 active COVID-19 outbreaks.
Elsewhere, Ontario reported 1,723 new cases of the coronavirus on Wednesday, bringing the provincial total to 119,922.
Wednesday’s case count is a slight increase from Tuesday’s 1,707 new infections. On Monday, 1,746 cases were recorded and 1,708 on Sunday.
The death toll in the province has risen to 3,698 as 35 more deaths were reported.
—With files from Global News’ Gabby Rodrigues