Record-high 415 COVID-19 cases reported on Christmas Eve in Waterloo Region, 917 over holidays

KITCHENER -

Waterloo Region has once again shattered its single day COVID-19 case record with 415 new infections reported on Christmas Eve and a total of 917over a three-day period.

Monday’s update on the public health dashboard showed 415 cases attributed to a 24-hour period on Christmas Eve, as well as 281 on Christmas Day, and 205 on Boxing Day.

This is now the third time Waterloo Region has broken its single-day record in the past week. A total of 232 cases were reported on Thursday, followed by 270 cases on Friday.

"The number will be higher once we are past this holiday season," said Zahid Butt, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Waterloo. "I think initially, when we had variants, it was more fever and other symptoms associated with fevers, but here you might have a runny nose, a headache, or some fatigue."

There have now been 23,960 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Waterloo Region since the pandemic began.

The active case count has also shot up in the last three days by 759, bringing the total to 1,927. Meanwhile, 171 more resolved cases over the holidays brings that total to 21,689.

There have been no new virus-related deaths reported in the last 72 hours.

Public health has identified nine more cases as Omicron variants and 11 more as Deltas. There have now been 61 Omicron cases in the region, 4,027 Deltas, and 7,333 variants of concern.

One more person has been hospitalized with the virus, while three more have been admitted to the ICU. There are currently 22 people hospitalized and nine being treated in intensive care.

The number of active facility outbreaks in Waterloo Region has dropped by three to a total of 14.

Just before Christmas, the region added more than 10,000 booster dose appointments at Bingeman's. Butt says the fact that spots are filling up quickly is a good thing.

"This means that more people want to get vaccinated," he said. "If more people get vaccinated, it helps in reducing transmission.

"Even if you have this booster vaccination shot, it still takes you about two weeks to get that level of immunity."

In Ontario, health officials confirmed 9,418 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Monday, which comes after 9,571 new cases on Friday, 10,412 new cases on Saturday and 9,862 new cases on Sunday.

The province recorded five new deaths on Monday, bringing the total death tally in the province to 10,161, and deemed 1,899 more cases of the disease to be resolved, bringing Ontario's number of recovered patients up to 632,365.

With reporting from CTV Kitchener's Heather Senoran and files from CTV Toronto