Waterloo Public Health reported two new COVID-19-related deaths on Tuesday, lifting the death toll in the area to 361 including 48 victims so far in 2022.
“Today we are reporting two deaths in our community related to COVID-19,” Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang, medical officer of health stated. “The two individuals were male, in their 80s. I wish to express my deep sympathy to the families of these individuals.”
The latest victims were residents of long-term care or retirement homes in the area where COVID-19 outbreaks have been declared.
There are now 64 COVID-19 outbreaks in the region, with 32 being connected to long-term-care or retirement homes, while 19 occurring in congregate settings and with the remaining 12 being connected to the three hospitals in the region.
Those hospitals say they are now caring for 125 patients with COVID-19 including 19 who are in need of intensive care.
Waterloo Public Health reported 99 new positive tests for the coronavirus on Tuesday, lifting the total number of cases in the area to 38,431.
This is the first time since Mid-December that there have been fewer than 100 cases reported in a day, although the numbers are considered an underestimation of actual community caseload since changes to testing availability have decreased the veracity of the totals.
The rolling seven-day average number of new daily cases has now dropped to 163.71. A week ago that number came in at 265.
In addition, a further 232 people were cleared of the virus, lifting the total number of resolved cases in the area to 35,983.
This leaves the area with 1,628 active COVID-19 cases, which is about 700 fewer than the 2,374 reported last Tuesday.
On the far end of the equation, Waterloo Public Health reports that there have now been 1,230,525 COVID-19 vaccinations done in the region, an increase of 1,563 over Monday. Last Tuesday, the difference worked out to be 1,839 so the vaccination wave continues to slow.
Another 1,123 residents got a third dose of vaccine raising the total to 267,507 while another 476 got a second dose pushing that total to 477,461. This means that 78.89 per cent of all eligible residents have now had two doses and are therefore considered to be fully vaccinated.
Elsewhere, Ontario reported 3,091 people in hospital with COVID on Tuesday with 568 in intensive care units.
This is up by 108 hospitalizations but a decrease of 15 in ICUs since the previous day. Last Tuesday, there were 4,008 hospitalizations with 626 in ICU.
Meanwhile, Ontario also reported 2,622 new lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, 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 1,035,916.
The death toll in the province has risen to 11,504 as 60 more virus-related deaths were added. Officials noted three deaths were removed from the cumulative total due to data clean up and these deaths occurred more than a month ago.
– with files from Global News’ Gabby Rodrigues
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