Ontario reports 2,662 new COVID-19 cases, 87 more deaths

Ontario reported another 2,662 cases of COVID-19 and 87 more deaths linked to the illness on Friday,as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the federal government will send two mobile health units to assist in the Greater Toronto Area.

"The spike in COVID-19 cases this month has put a real strain on hospitals," Trudeau said during a morning news conference.

"For Ontario, in particular, the situation is extremely serious."

Trudeausaid the units will provide up to 200 additional hospital bedsas well as medical equipment and supplies, freeing up space in the region's intensive care units.

In a news release, the federal government said the mobile units are being deployed after a provincial request for assistance, and that they expected to be in the GTA"as rapidly as possible." They are scheduled to remain available to the provincial government until May 1, depending on the COVID-19 trends in Ontario at that time.

The province will be responsible for staffing the mobile units, the release added.

WATCH | Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on mobile health units headed to the GTA:

Federal government to send two mobile health units to assist GTA, Trudeau says

4 years ago

Duration 0:43

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said COVID-19 is putting an extremely serious strain on Ontario hospitals. He announced that the federal government will send two mobile health units to assist Greater Toronto Area hospitals.

The new cases reported today include 779 in Toronto, 542 in Peel Region, 228 in York Region, 128 in Waterloo Region, 188 in Windsor-Essex County and 102 in Halton Region.

Other public health units that saw double-digit increases were:

• Niagara Region: 95
• Durham Region: 80
• Hamilton: 78
• Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph: 77
• Ottawa: 75
• Simcoe Muskoka: 71
• Middlesex-London: 65
• Thunder Bay: 58
• Eastern Ontario: 37
• Huron-Perth: 26
• Southwestern: 19
• Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge: 16
• Sudbury:13
• Chatham-Kent: 11

(Note: All of the figures used in this story are found on the Ministry of Health's COVID-19 dashboard or in itsDaily Epidemiologic Summary. The number of cases for any region may differ from what is reported by the local public health unit, because local units report figures at different times.)

They come as labs processed 71,750 test samples for the virus and reported a provincewide test positivity rate of 3.3 per cent, the lowest it has been since mid-December.

Further, the seven-day average of daily cases dropped to 2,703, marking 11 straight days of decreases.

Another 3,375 infections were marked resolved in today's report. There were 25,263 confirmed, active infections in Ontario yesterday a figure that has also been trending downward since its peak on Jan 11.

According to the province's data, the number of people with COVID-19 in hospitals, as well as those requiring intensive care and ventilators all decreased.

As of yesterday, the total number of COVID-19 patients that were:

• In hospitals: 1,512 (down 21)
• Being treated in intensive care units: 383 (down five)
• On ventilators: 291 (down two)

There were ongoing outbreaks of the illness in 244, or about 39 per cent, of Ontario's 626 long-term care homes. Revised projections recently released by the province's COVID-19 Science Advisory Table suggested ifOntario were to accelerateits immunization rolloutandvaccinate alllong-term care home residents by the end of January, rather than mid-February, as many as 580livescould be saved.

The 87 additional deaths push Ontario's official COVID-19-linked death toll to 5,701.

Meanwhile, the province said it administered 13,784 doses of vaccines Thursday. A total of264, 985 shots have been given out, while 49,292 people have received both doses.

WATCH |Measures in Ontario, Quebec seem to be working, epidemiologist says:

#StayHomeON media campaign

The provincial government said it has anew #StayHomeON campaign, which will include messages from various online "influencers" and politicians,including a video from Rick Mercer posted this morning.

Lisa MacLeod, minister of heritage, sport, tourism and culture industries, said in a news release that athletes on the Toronto Raptors and Ottawa Senators will also be participating.

Markedly absent from the province's expandedeffort to get Ontarians to stay home is the availability of permanent paid sick days, which the Progressive Conservative government eliminated in 2018.

The government's own medical and science advisers, as well as a chorus of municipalofficialsand activists, have repeatedly called for Premier Doug Ford and his cabinet to implement paid sick days, especially for essential and low-wage workers in the manufacturing, warehousing and food processing sectors.

Ford has instead pointed to thefederal Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit, which offers $500 per week for up to two weeks eligible workers. Critics have noted, however, that the program amounts to less than minimum wage and the financial assistance is not immediate.

More cases at Canada Post facility

Meanwhile, mandatory testing at a Mississauga Canada Post facility found 27 asymptomatic cases of COVID-19 in 48 hours.

Canada Post said 149 workers at its massive Dixie Road site had tested positive between Jan. 1 and Thursday afternoon. Spokesperson Phil Legault saidthe latest cases were detected among workers who were asymptomatic or didn't believe they had symptoms.

Testing of the entire shift was ordered by Peel Public Health and began Jan. 19. Legault saidCanada Post is now offering voluntary testing to employees working outside the public health-identified shift.

More than 4,500 people work at the Mississauga site.