KITCHENER -- Region of Waterloo Public Health has reported another 63 cases of COVID-19, the first time new cases have been over 60 since the weekend. Officials also reported another death.
The region's online COVID-19 dashboard shows that 59 cases were added on Wednesday, but the total number of cases in the region rose from 4,173 to 4,236. That means that the other four cases were added to totals from previous days.
The total number of cases includes 3,718 resolved cases and 131 deaths. There have been four deaths reported in the region since Tuesday, something that a public health doctor acknowledged was a symptom of the rapid increase in cases over the past month.
"Outbreaks, hospitalizations, and sadly, deaths, are lagging indicators which means we start to see increases in these areas a few weeks after we have a rapid acceleration of cases," said Dr. Julie Emili in a statement on Wednesday.
There were 382 active cases reported in the region as of Thursday's update. That's the lowest that number has been since Nov. 22, when officials reported 364 active cases. Of those, 31 people are currently in hospital, the dashboard shows, including 11 people who are being cared for in an ICU.
The state of outbreaks in the region didn't change much Thursday, with no new outbreaks declared and no new ones declared over. Only one outbreak, at a manufacturing or industrial facility, reported new cases, bringing its total from four to six.
NEW CASES ACROSS ONTARIO HIT RECORD HIGH -- AGAIN
Across the province, public health officials reported another all-time high in new cases on Thursday.
The 1,983 new cases reported broke three other records set in the past week alone: Saturday, Sunday and Monday's reports were all record-highs at the time.
There have been 134,783 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ontario since the pandemic began. That total includes 3,871 deaths—a number that rose by 35 in the 24 hours before Thursday's numbers were reported—and 114,679 recoveries.
