Ontario is reporting 170 new lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases this morning.
The provincial total is now 858 confirmed positive results, and there are 13 deaths in the province now attributed to COVID-19. That’s another four deaths reported since yesterday at 10:30 a.m.
Yesterday was the first day Ontario Health reported a triple-digit increase in lab-confirmed cases. There were 100 new cases reported on March 25.
Of those, eight are recorded as recovered.
Ontario Health does not report a recovered case until the individual has two lab-confirmed negative tests within 24 hours.
Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit (SMDHU) announced yesterday the region now has 21 lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases with 20 in Simcoe County and one in Muskoka.
On today’s provincial list there were four cases reported in Simcoe Muskoka. It appears as though those four cases are already included in the SMDHU list from yesterday, but those details will be confirmed at a press conference with the health unit later today.
In the region, there are 13 people between the ages of 35 and 64 confirmed positive, three between 18 and 34, and four over 65 years old. The 21st case has not yet been added to the health unit website, so it is not included in those demographic statistics.
Six people in the region have been hospitalized for the virus, and two have died. Eleven of the cases have been traced to travel and the rest are attributed to close contact or community transmission.
The health unit has not yet released details on what community each case was discovered in.
SMDHU Medical Officer of Health Dr. Charles Gardner said he would release the locations to the media today. But also noted the health unit has noticed people taking information about where each case is located and using that to suggest their community is safe because there are no confirmed cases there.
He cautioned against this line of thinking and reminded residents the virus is spreading throughout communities and there are many more cases that will never be lab-confirmed because they will not be tested.
“We have an incomplete picture of the people that are affected, for sure there are people in the community who are infected that we don’t know about,” he said during a press conference yesterday.
