

Chris Herhalt, CP24.com





Ontario health officials have confirmed 564 new cases of COVID-19 in the province, along with 55 new deaths, the highest daily case increase and death toll reported since the outbreak began.

The province reported 514 new cases on Thursday and 494 new cases on Wednesday.

Friday’s announcement exceeds the previous record high daily case increase by 14 cases and is higher by four than the previously daily record increase in deaths ̶ the 51 lives lost on Wednesday.

The total number of cases in the province including deaths and recoveries now stands at 9,525.

In total, 478 deaths have reported by the province’s Integrated Public Health Information System.

Ontario’s 34 local public health units had together reported 505 deaths by 11:30 a.m. on Friday.

The province completed 8,899 tests in the last 24 hours, down slightly from the 9,001 tests processed on Thursday.

Close to 6,000 test specimens were being processed on Friday, up from 4,300 on Thursday.

There are 829 people in hospital with COVID-19, up 22 from Thursday, with 245 of those people in intensive care, down three from Thursday.

Two-hundred people remain intubated, breathing with the assistance of a ventilator across the province.

Those figures are well below what previously released modelling predicted, and Ford said new forecasts will be released Monday. The modelling is “generally looking better,” Yaffe said, while cautioning that the province is not out of the woods yet.

The number of patients considered recovered from the disease now stands at 4,556, or almost 48 per cent of total cases.

This means only 39 per cent of Ontario’s cases are still considered “active” infections, while about five per cent of confirmed cases have been fatal.

All but 30 of the 478 deaths reported to the province since the outbreak began have been people aged 60 or over.

There are now 106 active confirmed outbreaks of COVID-19 in the long-term care system, with 216 residents of those facilities now dead.

-- with files from The Canadian Press