Ontario passes 100 fatalities with new COVID-19 deaths
Monday first day to apply for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit
TORONTO — Another 25 people in Ontario have succumbed to COVID-19, bringing the provincial death toll for the virus to 119, health authorities reported on Sunday.
The fatalities come as the overall known caseload jumped past the 4,000 mark with more than 400 new ones reported. More than 150 people were on ventilators.
More than three dozen outbreaks have now been reported in nursing homes across the province. The frail elderly are at particular risk for coronavirus, which can produce no or mild symptoms, but can also cause lethal pneumonia.
In Bobcaygeon, Ont., another resident of Pinecrest Nursing Home died, bringing the virus death toll in the 65-bed facility to 23. It is one of the worst outbreaks of the coronavirus in the country. At least 24 staff members at the facility have also tested positive for COVID-19.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who has urged people to stay home except for essential outings, had no public events on Sunday, nor did Mayor John Tory of Toronto, which has about half the cases in the province.
Tory, however, did put out a short video in which he, too, urged people to stay home despite good weather.
“We’re going to break the back of this virus if we do this,” Tory said.
Ontario has projected between 3,000 and 15,000 lives could be lost to the pandemic even with stiff stayhome restrictions.
Meanwhile, Canada’s public health chief said Canadian hospitals should not throw out used face masks and other protective equipment because public health officials are investigating whether it will be possible to disinfect and reuse them.
In her daily briefing to Canadians, Dr. Theresa Tam also said chief medical officers are working on recommendations to the general public for the best uses of homemade face masks.
Tam continues to warn Canadians that the best defence against COVID-19 is for people to stay home as much as possible, wash their hands frequently with soap and keep a twometre distance from other people when you need to go out for essentials like food or medication.
While she has not yet suggested people should wear non-medical face masks when they go out, she said Sunday her office is working on generat
ing advice for what people should do if they choose to wear a homemade mask, including what materials are best to use.
However, Tam still stressed homemade masks are to keep people who may have the virus from spreading it to others and do little to protect people from getting the virus. The medical masks that can offer protection must be reserved for medical staff, Tam said.
For front-line health-care workers, having access to N-95 respirator masks is critical. Thousands of Italian and Spanish health professionals contracted COVID-19 while treating patients and unable to get access to proper protective equipment. In Italy, more than 50 doctors died of COVID-19.
In Canada, the number of infected health workers is growing, with 274 known cases in Ontario health workers alone.
More than 14,400 Canadians have now tested positive for COVID-19, and the number of deaths climbed above 258 Sunday, including another resident at the Pinecrest Nursing Home in Bobcaygeon, Ont., bringing the death toll at just that one facility to 23.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also noted that Monday is the first day people who are out of work because of COVID-19 can go online to apply for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit. It offers Canadians who lost their jobs up to $2,000 a month.
Trudeau says it will take three to five days for the money to arrive by direct deposit or 10 days by mail.
Only those born in January, February and March can apply Monday. The rest of the months will go in order in groups of three on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday before it opens to everyone on Friday.
Trudeau says the government is doing everything it can to prevent the system from crashing.