4 new COVID-19 deaths reported in Waterloo Region on Wednesday

Waterloo Public Health reported four new COVID-19-related deaths on Tuesday, lifting the death toll in the area to 395.

“Today, we are reporting four deaths in our community related to COVID-19: a male in his 80a, a male in his 70s, a female in her 70s, and a male in his 50s,” Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang, medical officer of health, stated.

“I wish to express my deep sympathy to the families of these individuals.”

There have now been 82 victims reported in 2022 including 28 during the month of February.

The three area hospitals continue to deal with a high level of patients although that number continues to decrease.

On Tuesday, it was reported that they had 50 patients including 14 who were in need of intensive care.

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There are also five active outbreaks at the area hospitals as the region now has 16 active COVID-19 outbreaks in areas of concern. There are also six in congregate settings and five in long-term-care or retirement homes.

Waterloo Public Health reported another 69 positive tests for the coronavirus on Tuesday, lifting the total number of official cases in the area to 40,252.

This lifts the rolling seven-day average number of new daily cases back up to 56.3 A week ago, that number was 78.6, but the testing numbers are considered an underestimation of actual community caseload since changes to testing availability have decreased the veracity of the totals.

Another 87 people were cleared of the virus, lifting the total number of resolved cases up to 39,097. This drops the number of active cases in the region to 735, whereas there were 877 last Wednesday.

Elsewhere, Ontario reported 1,106 people in hospital with COVID on Wednesday, with 319 in intensive care units.

This is up by 68 hospitalizations and unchanged in ICUs since the previous day. Last Wednesday, there were 1,403 hospitalizations with 364 in ICU.

Meanwhile, Ontario also reported 1,425 new lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, 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 1,091,526.

The death toll in the province has risen to 12,306 as 19 more virus-related deaths were added but one death was removed based on data cleanup. A ministry of health spokesperson said the most recent deaths occurred over the past 24 days.

— with files from Global News’ Gabby Rodrigues