The increase in new cases is up from the 309 confirmed on Monday but is still down from the record 462 cases reported by the province last Friday.
The province now lists 153 deaths in people with confirmed cases of COVID-19, though information provided by Ontario’s 34 public health units indicates that the actual number of deaths so far is 164. The discrepancy is likely due to the fact that the province’s numbers are only up to date as of 4 p.m. one day prior.
The total number of people hospitalized with the virus, meanwhile, continues to increase but may be leveling off slightly from recent days when dozens of new hospitalizations were regularly reported.
There are currently 614 people in Ontario hospitals with known cases of COVID-19, including 233 in intensive care units. That is up about four per cent from Monday when there were 589 people hospitalized, including 216 in intensive care units.
The backlog in tests waiting to be processed, which at one point neared 11,000, remains low but has more than doubled since Monday, going from 329 to 691.
Public health officials have previously said that eliminating the backlog was necessary in order to get a more up to date picture of how the virus is spreading in Ontario.
The data also suggests that long-term care homes continue to be a breeding ground for the transmission of the virus with outbreaks at 51 different facilities, an increase of five from one day prior. Those outbreaks have now claimed the lives of 69 people, meaning that the majority of the new deaths reported by the province (13) on Tuesday involved residents of long-term care homes.
The new cases bring the total number provincewide to 4,726, including recoveries and deaths.
Recovered patients now number 1,802, or more than 38 per cent of the total case count.
That number is up 140 per cent from this time last week when the province had 1,966 confirmed cases.
Here are some other highlight from the data:
- There are now 513 confirmed cases in healthcare workers (10.9 per cent of all cases)
- The percentage of cases resulting in death continues to rise and is now 3.2 per cent
- Greater Toronto Area health units account for 51.5 per cent of all cases
- Toronto Public Health has reported 1,103 confirmed cases so far
- People between 40 and 59 years old make up the biggest percentage of cases (35.9 per cent) followed by those between 20 and 39 (26.7 per cent)
