Waterloo Public Health reported 11 new COVID-19-related deaths in the region Monday, raising the death toll in the area to 359, including 20 victims announced over the past week.
“Today we are reporting 11 deaths in our community related to COVID-19,” Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang, medical officer of health, stated. “I wish to express my deep sympathy to the families of these individuals.”
She noted that the victims included a woman in her 100s while the other victims, which ranged in age from their 60s to their 90s, included three other women and six men.
Several were residents of various long-term care and retirement homes in the area, where 32 of the region’s 70 active outbreaks are occurring.
Another 23 outbreaks are in congregate settings, while the region’s three major hospitals account for the other 12.
The number of patients suffering from COVID-19 has taken a dip to 120, although there are still 20 people who are in need of intensive care.
The final dashboard update for January shows that another 392 people have caught the virus, lifting the total number of COVID-19 cases in the area to 38,333.
The agency does not update its dashboard on weekends so Monday’s update always represents three days’ worth of numbers.
This brings the rolling seven-day average number of new daily cases down to 174, although the region says the case count may not be a hundred per cent accurate due to testing restrictions.
Another 579 people were also cleared of the virus, lifting the total number of resolved cases in the area to 35,571.
This leaves the area with 1,798 active COVID-19 cases, exactly 1,000 below what was reported last Monday.
Waterloo Public Health reports that there have now been 1,228,962 COVID-19 vaccinations done in the area, which is 7,881 more than it reported on Friday.
Another 4,412 residents got their booster dose, lifting the total number of people who have received three jabs of COVID-19 vaccine to 266,384.
In addition, another 3,014 people got a second dose, raising the total number of people who are considered to be fully vaccinated to 476,985, which works out to about 78.81 per cent of all area residents.
Elsewhere, Ontario reported 2,983 people in hospital with COVID-19 on Monday with 583 in intensive care units.
This is down by 36 hospitalizations and a decrease of four in ICUs since the previous day, though officials noted not all hospitals reported updated figures due to the weekend.
Meanwhile, Ontario also reported 3,043 new lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases on Monday, though that is an underestimate of the true widespread transmission of the virus due to recent testing restrictions. The provincial case total now stands at 1,033,294.
The death toll in the province has risen to 11,444 as 32 more virus-related deaths were added.
— with files from Global News’ Gabby Rodrigues