

Chris Fox, CP24.com





Ontario has reported the lowest increase in new COVID-19 cases and deaths from the virus in nearly two weeks, providing a glimmer of hope that province may finally be seeing the other side of the epidemic’s peak.

Data released by the Ministry of Health indicates that there were 437 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed over the last 24 hours and 24 new deaths.

The somewhat encouraging news comes after the province reported 476 new cases on Saturday, which was also a multi-week low.

The number of new cases and deaths in the latest report are the lowest they have been since the province reported 421 new cases and 17 new deaths on April 13.

They are also significantly down from the record 640 new cases and 50 deaths reported by the province on Friday.

Testing, meanwhile, continues to be ramped up. The province conducted more than 12,000 tests on Saturday, up from 10,578 one day prior. Officials had aimed to be conducting 12,500 tests a day by April 22 and now appear to be getting closer to that threshold.

“It looks like a number of metrics are going in the right direction,” Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams said on Saturday, noting that the drop in new cases coincides with an increase in testing. “At the beginning of April we peaked at about 12 or 13 per cent positivity (of all tests) and today it is down to five per cent. That is a significant drop but it is one day so let’s see what happens over the weekend and in the early parts of next week.”

13 more people hospitalized

There are now 938 people hospitalized with COVID-19 across the province. That number is up 13 from one day prior.

The number of people in intensive care units, meanwhile, continues to hold relatively steady. It is up seven today and now stands at 252 but has remained roughly in that range for weeks.

Long-term care homes, where Premier Doug Ford has compared the spread of the virus to “like wildfire” continue to account for more than three-quarters of all fatalities.

Of the 835 deaths reported so far, 654 have involved residents at long-term care homes.

Cases within long-term care homes also continue to surge.

The province is now reporting 167 outbreaks with a total of 2,520 confirmed cases among residents and 1,161 confirmed cases among staff.

That means that there have been a total of 106 new cases of COVID-19 connected to long-term care homes over the last 24 hours, accounting for about one-quarter of the new cases.

The total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 provincewide now stands at 14,432, including 835 deaths. That number is up about 36 per cent from the 10,578 cases that had been confirmed at this point last week.

It should be noted that Williams has previously said that in order to begin lifting restrictions on public life, he would like to see the province recording 200 or fewer new cases of COVID-19 in the community each day.

Premier Doug Ford has said that he will release plans for a gradual reopening of the economy this week, though it remains unclear how soon such a plan could be implemented and Ford has promised to defer to the advice of public health officials.

"When we do turn on the economy, it is going to be a trickle, a little bit at a time, see where we are in two weeks, a little bit more, and a little bit more. We can’t rush into this," he said last week.

Other highlights from the data: