

Chris Herhalt, CP24.com





Ontario public health officials reported 19 new cases of COVID-19 infection, taking the province’s total case count including recoveries to 79.

One of the province’s new cases, a man in his 80s in Niagara Region, has been hospitalized for treatment, while the rest remain in self-isolation at their homes.

He is only the second Ontario patient to require hospitalization since the outbreak began.

Niagara Region Medical Officer of Health Dr. Mustafa Hirji said the Niagara man went to a hospital in the region on March 10 for an unrelated medical problem.

He tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday.

Because the healthcare workers and paramedics who first treated him had no reason to believe he had COVID-19, they are now in self-isolation “out of an abundance of caution.”

“The patient is currently in an isolation room undergoing treatment by our infectious diseases team to manage his symptoms and is in stable condition," Dr. Karim Ali of St. Catharines General Hospital said Friday.

While they could definitively say how the elderly man acquired the virus, Niagara health officials said he had a family member who recently returned from Portugal.

"The working hypothesis is that this family member is the source of infection. The family member has now been isolated, and Public Health is working to identify all contacts for further follow-up."

Officials thus far have been classifying cases as caused by travel or close contact with a previously confirmed patient, or “community spread,” where no known link to an earlier case can be established.

To date, health officials have not confirmed any cases of community spread in Ontario.

The increase in active cases from Thursday evening to Friday represents a 32 per cent rise in the Ontario total.

The new case disclosure includes Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, who is listed in the official report as an Ottawa female in her 40s, with recent travel to England.

Fourteen of the new cases range in age from men and women in their 20s to their 80s, with four of the new patients reporting recent travel to the United States.

Two of the patients, a man and woman in their 70s, disclosed recent travel to Egypt and were diagnosed at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto.

Two of the cases were considered close contact of previously reported patients. Officials listed another two patients’ infections being caused by either travel or close contact with another patient.

Another three of the nineteen patients were listed as travel-related cases of COVID-19 infection, without any disclosure of where they travelled to.

Toronto hospitals reported 12 of the 19 new cases, including five of those disclosed without any details of age, gender, how they were infected.

At least six Ontario universities have now cancelled classes for the next several weeks.

A further 580 people are under investigation for possible infection. Five patients of the 79 infected in Ontario since the outbreak began have made full recoveries.

Canada has 198 cases, as well as one fatality.