Number of active COVID-19 cases in Waterloo Region falls below 700

The region is down to 686 active COVID-19 cases, according to numbers released by Waterloo Public Health on Tuesday.

The number has dropped by almost 14 per cent in less than two weeks as the agency reported 1,092 active cases on Jan.1 4, which was a record for the area.

A large part of the drop can be explained by a slowly decreasing number of new cases as Waterloo Public Health has now reported fewer than 100 cases for four straight days, and five of the last six.

It reported 67 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, raising the total number of cases to 9,094.

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Another 120 people have been cleared of the virus, lifting the total number of resolved cases to 8,212.

Waterloo Public Health reported another COVID-19-related death, which makes the death toll 192 including the 10 fatalities that have been reported over the past six days.

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The number of people in area hospitals took a jump on Tuesday as there are now 47, including 10 who are intensive care. That is an increase of seven since Monday’s report.

There are currently 39 active COVID-19 outbreaks in Waterloo Region, a number that is unchanged from a day earlier.

There was a new outbreak declared in construction while the outbreak in a mental health unit at Grand River Hospital has been declared over.

Elsewhere, the province reported 1,740 new cases of the coronavirus, bringing the provincial total to 258,700.

Tuesday’s case count is lower than Monday’s which saw 1,958 new infections. On Sunday, 2,417 new cases were recorded and 2,359 cases were reported on Saturday.

It was the lowest increase in daily cases since Dec. 13 when 1,677 new cases were reported.

“Locally, there are 677 new cases in Toronto, 320 in Peel and 144 in York Region,” Health Minister Christine Elliott said.

The death toll in the province has risen to 5,909 after 63 more deaths were reported.

–With files from Global News’ Gabby Rodrigues