For the first time in more than two weeks, Waterloo Public Health did not report a new COVID-19-related death, although the number of patients in area hospitals with the virus did rise on Tuesday.
A new death had been reported each weekday since Jan. 20 prior to Tuesday’s update.
There are now 87 patients in the three hospitals suffering from COVID-19, with 19 of those needing intensive care. That means there are three more patients in hospital, although the ICU number remains unchanged from Monday.
There were also 88 new positive tests for the coronavirus on Tuesday, lifting the total number of cases in the area to 39,207.
This drops the rolling seven-day average number of new daily cases to 110.9. A week ago, that number was 163.71, but the testing numbers are considered an underestimation of actual community caseload since changes to testing availability have decreased the veracity of the totals.
Only 16 more people were cleared of the virus, although that total does fall on the heels of Monday’s report, where there were close to 1,000 people cleared over the previous three days. A total of 37,361 area residents have now been cleared of the virus.
This leaves the area with 1,175 active COVID-19 cases, down from 1,628 last Tuesday.
The area is also down to 47 active COVID-19 outbreaks, including 25 connected to long-term care or retirement homes, 12 in congregate settings and 10 at the three area hospitals.
The vaccination numbers on the region’s dashboard had not been updated as of the time this story was published.
Elsewhere, Ontario reported 2,254 people in hospital with COVID-19 on Tuesday, with 474 in intensive care units.
This is up by 99 hospitalizations but a decrease of 12 in ICUs since the previous day. Last Tuesday, there were 3,091 hospitalizations with 568 in ICU.
Meanwhile, Ontario also reported 2,092 new lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, though that is an underestimate of the true widespread transmission of the virus due to testing restrictions. The provincial case total now stands at 1,058,241.
The death toll in the province has risen to 11,878 as 42 more virus-related deaths were added. The deaths were from the past 26 days, a Ministry of Health spokesperson said.
— with files from Global News’ Gabby Rodrigues
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