Ontario confirms notable spike in COVID-19 cases and 17 new deaths

Ontario health officials are once again reporting a rise in new cases of COVID-19 in the province, with 446 new cases confirmed today. 

This comes after the province reported its highest number of new cases in a week yesterday, with 404 new cases reported Monday at 10:30 a.m.

The additional cases mark a 1.6 per cent increase from the previous report and bring the total number of cases within the province to date to 28,709. 

A closer look at #COVIDー19 daily changes in #Ontario🎢

New cases: 446
New deaths: 17
New resolved: 331

Thicker line is 7 day moving average.#COVID19 #COVID19ON #covid19Canada #onhealth pic.twitter.com/COwrWKxb7u

— Dr. Jennifer Kwan (@jkwan_md) June 2, 2020

A total of 22,484 (78.3 per cent) cases are now considered to be resolved and 17 new deaths have also been confirmed in Ontario (for a total of 2,293), leaving 3,932 active cases. 

According to the Ministry of Health's dedicated coronavirus web portal, public health units across the province completed 15,244 tests yesterday. 

And while this is still slightly lower than the province's 16,000 benchmark, it's a minor improvement from the 14,379 new tests completed Sunday and a marked increase from the abysmal testing numbers reported at the end of May.

Public health units have now completed 747,964 tests to date, while 10,622 remain under investigation. 

Ontario reported a second daily spike in COVID cases. With few people crossing the border, could this be unchecked community spread? Do we yet have contact tracing and testing bandwidth to “reopen” safely? I’m a bit nervous about what numbers will look like 2 weeks from now...

— Brendon @🏠 (@eyeonthefly) June 2, 2020

The province is also reporting three new outbreaks in long-term care homes in Ontario, bringing the total number of outbreaks in these settings to 309. These homes have been at the centre of Ontario's COVID-19 outbreak, with deaths among long-term care home residents making up 63.9 per cent of total deaths in the province. 

Meanwhile, Ontario has been in Stage 1 of reopening the economy since mid-May and many are hoping to see more businesses and services reopen in the coming weeks.

But as Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams has previously and continuously stated, cases will need to steadily decline for two to four weeks before we can move on to Stage 2.

by Mira Miller via blogTO