Ontario reports nearly 2,300 new coronavirus cases, setting one-day record

Ontario reported 2,275 new cases of coronavirus on Tuesday, marking a new single-day record, to bring the provincial total to 144,396.

However, Ontario said that it pulled data at a different time than it usually does, resulting in a one-day increase in the daily case count for some public health units.

“Public Health Ontario has changed their data extraction process & updated their data extraction time to 1 p.m. (from 10:30 a.m.), resulting in a one-time increase in case counts and some variations in results,” Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott said in a tweet.

This comes one day after vaccinations began in Ontario.

The previous daily case record was set on Dec. 10 when 1,983 new infections were recorded.

According to Tuesday’s provincial report, 711 cases were recorded in Toronto, 586 in Peel Region, 185 in Windsor-Essex and 154 in York Region.

All other public health units in Ontario reported under 100 new cases in the provincial report.

The death toll in the province has risen to 3,992 as 20 more deaths were reported.

Ontario has 921 people hospitalized with COVID-19 (up by 64 from the previous day), with 249 patients in an intensive care unit (up by five) and 156 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (up by seven).

The government said 39,566 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. There is currently a backlog of 45,770 tests that need results. A total of 7,059,300 tests have been completed since the pandemic began.

Meanwhile, 123,373 Ontarians have recovered from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, which is 85 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 1,810 from the previous day.

Active cases in Ontario now stand at 17,031, up from the previous day at 16,586, and up from last Tuesday at 16,151.

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

• 70,743 people are male — an increase of 1,132 cases.
• 72,794 people are female — an increase of 1,133 cases.
• 18,211 people are 19 and under — an increase of 341 cases.
• 52,801 people are 20 to 39 — an increase of 815 cases.
• 41,386 people are 40 to 59 — an increase of 672 cases.
• 20,755 people are 60 to 79 — an increase of 322 cases.
• 11,218 people are 80 and over — an increase of 124 cases.

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

The province 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. Data may also be pulled at different times.

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

Ontario long-term care homes

According to the Ministry of Long-Term Care, there have been 2,424 deaths reported among residents and patients in long-term care homes across Ontario which is an increase of 24 deaths.

Eight health-care workers and staff in long-term care homes have died which has remained unchanged for months.

There are 134 current outbreaks in homes, a decrease of three from the previous day.

The ministry also indicated there are currently 695 active cases among long-term care residents and 761 active cases among staff — up by 36 cases and up by 24 cases, respectively, in the last day.

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Ontario child care centres and schools

Meanwhile, government figures show there have been a total of 6,664 school-related COVID-19 cases in Ontario — 4,594 among students and 977 among staff (1,093 individuals were not identified). This is an increase of 319 more cases over a three-day period.

In the last 14 days, the province indicates there are 1,445 cases reported among students and 295 cases among staff (five individuals were not identified) — totaling 1,745 cases.

The COVID-19 cases are currently from 913 out of 4,828 schools in the province.

Twenty schools in Ontario are currently closed, the government indicated. The province notes that all schools in the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit are all currently closed for in-person classes.

There have been a total of 1,124 confirmed cases within child care centres and homes — an increase of 55 (30 child cases and 25 staff cases.) Out of 5,251 child care centres in Ontario, 226 currently have cases and 43 centres are closed.

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