Ontario stays under 100 new COVID-19 cases for fifth day
Windsor-Essex makes progress with only one new positive Friday
Ontario stayed below 100 new cases of COVID-19 for a fifth day in a row, the Ministry of Health reported Friday, leaving the province with an increase of 822 infections since the same time last week.
There were 88 new cases, down from 95 the previous day, with an increase of 118 people who are considered to have recovered from the virus, leaving 1,090 residents fighting active infections across the province.
“The persistent decline in active cases continues,” Health Minister Christine Elliott wrote on Twitter.
She said18 of 34 health units in Ontario had no new cases, with nine others having fewer than five. Ottawa and Peel both reported 15, with Toronto at 10 in the ministry figures based on data available at 4 p.m. the previous day.
Windsor-Essex, the only region in the province still in Stage 2 of reopenings because of troublesome outbreaks, reported just one new case Friday — the second time since Wednesday it has notched a single new infection. Both were in agri-farm workers.
As residents in the region await news Monday on whether it will be cleared by Premier Doug Ford’s government to enter Stage 3, where bars and restaurants can serve patrons indoors and gyms, movie theatres and playgrounds can reopen with some restrictions, local medical officer Dr. Wajid Ahmed said officials are keeping an eye on 13 local farm, manufacturing and construction outbreaks.
He encouraged people to keep working from home when possible and for everyone to continue with actions to prevent the spread of the highly contagious virus.
“If they do not take precautions for COVID-19 it can easily explode into a major outbreak,” he warned at a news conference.
The reproduction rate of the virus is at 0.35 locally, meaning each new case spreads it to fewer than one other person and is “a measure that public health interventions are working,” Ahmed said.
Of the 66 people requiring hospital care for COVID-19 across Ontario, 10 are in Windsor with three in intensive care. Overall, the province has 28 in ICU with 12 on ventilators. The 66 in hospital represents the lowest number of hospital cases in months.
Windsor-Essex continued to have the highest number of active cases in the province with 186 compared to Toronto at 172, Ottawa at 161, and Peel Region at 132.
In Ottawa, chief federal public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam said the country has been recording almost 400 cases daily this week, with the total reaching118,561, including 8,966 dead since COVID-19 first arrived in January.
Ontario has about one-third of the COVID cases across Canada.
A Star compilation of data from health units at 5 p.m. Friday found 107 more confirmed and probable cases in the previous 24 hours, raising the total to 41,954 since late January. There have been 2,821 deaths, more than1,800 of them among nursing-home residents.