Ontario sees lowest percentage growth in new cases,
New low for percentage growth in Star tally
Ontario’s has seen another 60 deaths from COVID-19 in a 24hour period that also saw the lowest growth in new cases since early April, according to the Star’s latest count.
As of midday Sunday, Ontario’s regional health units were reporting a total of 21,303 confirmed or probable cases of COVID-19, including 1,709 deaths.
In recent weeks, the epidemic has seen these numbers trend in different directions, with Sunday no exception: On average, the number of new deaths each day continues to rise, while the number of new cases reported has been slowly falling.
Dr. Susan J. Bondy, an associate professor at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, believes the reason for this is that the latest number of deaths signify what happened to the new cases in the past.
“Fourteen days ago, the cases were significantly higher — so you do expect to see the pattern of death follow a little bit behind the number of cases.”
The 334 new cases reported provincewide since the same time Saturday was the lowest since early April, when Ontario had fewer than 5,000 confirmed or probable cases. It was also the lowest by daily percentage growth — 1.4 per cent — the Star has counted since the beginning of the pandemic.
That daily rate that has fallen sharply from the rapid growth seen in the province at that time.
In March, the province saw an average daily growth of nearly 20 per cent, a rate that doubled Ontario’s case count about every four days. In April, that rate slowed to an average of 6.5 per cent daily growth, or a doubling time of around 11 days. So far in May, the average has fallen to less than 2.5 per cent, a rate that would double the case count in about a month.
Because many health units publish tallies to their websites before reporting to Public Health Ontario, the Star’s count is more current than the data the province puts out each morning.
Earlier Sunday, the province 961 patients are now hospitalized with COVID-19, including 195 in intensive care, of whom 140 are on a ventilator — numbers that were down slightly from the previous day. The province also says nearly 15,000 patients who have tested positive for the coronavirus have now recovered from the disease
— about two-thirds of the total infected.
The province says its data is accurate to 4 p.m. the previous day.
The province also cautions its latest count of total deaths — 1,634 — may be incomplete or out of date due to delays in the reporting system, saying that in the event of a discrepancy, “data reported by (the health units) should be considered the most up to date.”
The Star’s count includes some patients reported as “probable” COVID-19 cases, meaning they have symptoms and contacts or travel history that indicate they very likely have the disease, but have not yet received a positive lab test.