20 new COVID-19 cases reported in Waterloo Region, highest number in over a week

After the COVID-19 daily case count reached as low as nine on Sunday, things have headed in the wrong direction with Waterloo Public Health announcing 20 new positive tests for the coronavirus on Thursday.

This is the highest number the agency has reported since July 19, when 22 new cases were announced.

Thursday’s number lifts the total number of cases in the region to 18,340 and the rolling seven-day average number of new cases back up to 14.1.

Another 15 people from the area were also cleared of the virus, lifting the total number of resolved cases across the region to 17,930.

And for the sixth straight day, no new COVID-19 related deaths were reported, leaving the death toll in the area at 282 including 17 victims this month.

A new COVID-19 outbreak was reported at the Adventure4Change day camp in Waterloo where seven people from multiple cohorts have tested positive.

This news was somewhat balanced by the fact three other outbreaks were declared over leaving the area with just six active outbreaks. Outbreaks that were connected to the Rising Oaks Camp in Kitchener, a home daycare and a trades location are all over.

On the flip side of the coin, thousands of people continue to get vaccinated on a daily basis in Waterloo Region.

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The region’s COVID-19 vaccination task force says that there have now been 753,747 vaccinations down in the area, 4,623 more than the day before.

It says that 346,322 residents have now been vaccinated in the area, 3,600 more than the task force announced 24 hours prior.

There is a growing gap between the number of people in the area who are fully vaccinated and the number of vaccinations done in the region. That number jumped by thousands on Wednesday.

While 346,322 Waterloo Region residents are now fully vaccinated, only 331,539 occurred in the area.

A spokesperson for the task force told Global News that the drastic change on Wednesday’s report was due to people previously being attributed to other health units or none at all now being labelled as residents from the region.

Either way, 71.22 per cent of area residents have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine while 58.81 per cent are now fully vaccinated.

Those numbers climb to 82.7 per cent and 68.3 per cent when simply considering those who are over the age of 11 and therefore eligible to be vaccinated.

Elsewhere, Ontario reported 218 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, jumping back into the 200s for the first time in three weeks. The provincial case total now stands at 549,952.

According to Thursday’s report, 38 cases were recorded in both Toronto and Peel Region, 25 in Hamilton, 13 in Grey Bruce, 12 in Halton Region, and 10 in both Middlesex-London and York Region.

All other local public health units reported fewer than 10 new cases in the provincial report.

The death toll in the province has risen to 9,328 as three more deaths were recorded.

— with files from Global News’ Gabby Rodrigues