

Chris Fox, CP24.com





Ontario is reporting 86 more deaths in people who have contracted COVID-19, a grim new milestone in the province’s months-long battle with the virus.

It is by far the highest death toll reported in any 24-hour period so far, easily surpassing the 59 deaths reported on Tuesday.

The province has now confirmed 1,082 deaths in people who have contracted the virus, though an independent count of reporting by Ontario’s 34 public health units revealed that there have actually been 1,120 deaths as of 9:30 a.m.

The discrepancy is likely due to the fact that the province’s data is only based off information uploaded to its database as of 4 p.m. one day prior.

Despite the high death toll, the number of new cases of COVID-19 does seem to be on the decline after months on the rise.

The latest data from the Ministry of Health indicates that there were 459 new cases confirmed on Wednesday. That is up from the 347 cases reported one day prior but remains well off the record 640 cases reported on April 24. In fact in all but one of the six days since then, the province has reported fewer than 500 new cases.

That is after six straight days in which the total surge passed that threshold. The decline also comes as the province ramps up its testing. On Wednesday it conducted a record 12,928 tests, which was just short of the 14,000 daily tests it wanted to conduct by April 29.

“Today we are on the path to reopening the economy because that curve is flattening, that surge in the hospitals, we avoided it, and that trend is going down,” Premier Doug Ford said during a news conference at Queen’s Park on Thursday afternoon, noting that officials have assured them that they will hit the 14,000 daily test threshold today. “There is a light at the end of the tunnel and I am laser-focused right now on opening things up as quickly as we can in a safe and measured way.”

Nearly 1,000 COVID-19 patients in hospitals

While the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 continues to rise with 22 more patients admitted over the last 24 hours for a total of 999, there has yet to be any significant spike within intensive care units.

The latest data reveals that there are now 233 COVID-19 patients in ICU’s provincewide. That number has been slowly trending downwards since reaching a high of 264 on April 9.

The number of those people on ventilators now stands at 181, which is down five from one day prior.

It should be noted that public health officials have said that they will need to see a “consistent” two-to-four week decline in new cases before they can begin to lift some of the restrictions that have largely brought public life to a standstill.

Ford, however, expressed optimism on Thursday that we will get to that point sooner rather than later.

He had previously said that he wouldn't set "hard dates until we are ready because the virus travels at its own speed."

“I am feeling more positive over the last four or five days. You get the odd spike as we have seen but over the last four or five days we have seen more positive results (than negative ones)," he said. “This changes day by day by day but we have to make sure we are prepared (to reopen the economy).”

190 outbreaks at long-term care homes

The data released on Thursday reveals that the virus continues to be spreading within long-term care facilities, which Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams says now account for about 50 per cent of all new cases.

There are currently 190 outbreaks at Ontario long-term care homes, which is up nine from one day prior.

Those outbreaks have resulted in 2,385 confirmed cases among residents and 1,148 confirmed cases among staff.

Williams did say at a briefing on Thursday afternoon that it appears as though cases within long-term care homes could be peaking and that we could see a peak in deaths in those facilities “sometime next week.”

He said that community transmission of the virus also appears to have “plateaued” with the number of new cases being reported each day “in the low 200s.”

Williams said that in order to start to loosen restrictions, he would like to see that number dip to “well below 200.”

He also said that the average number of people each infected person transmits the virus to also needs fall further after going from 1.3 to 1 this week.

“Once we started to get around 150 or 160 cases (a day) in late March we started seeing more and more community spread so we have to get back to somewhere around there so we can be sure that all of our cases are followed up on and we can identify what was the source,” he said. “That assertive containment is very critical to relaxing the public health measures and sort of resuming social activity.”

The total number of confirmed cases provincewide is 16,187.

Other highlights from the data: