Ontario reports new daily record high of more than 1,800 COVID-19 cases
Posted November 27, 2020 10:19 am.
Last Updated November 27, 2020 1:03 pm.
Ontario is reporting 1,855 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday — a new record high in the province and a sharp increase from 1,478 confirmed on Thursday.
The previous single-day high was 1,589 cases on Monday.
Most of the new cases are in Peel Region (517), followed by Toronto (494), York Region (189), and Halton Region (130).
However, Halton officials said the number of new cases in their region was higher than usual due to a delay in reporting.
“Approximately 50-60 cases entered by laboratories into the provincial Case and Contact Management (CCM) solution from November 17 to 24 did not get reported to Halton Region Public Health until November 25. Ongoing data remediation led to a delay in the dashboard refresh on November 25, and is resulting in a large number of new cases being added to the dashboard on November 26,” a statement on the region’s website said.
The latest numbers come as GTA regions outside of Toronto and Peel Region — two virus hotspots that are currently under lockdown — brace for Black Friday shoppers as malls open in York, Durham and Halton regions. There are concerns that those in the locked down areas may shop elsewhere in the GTA.
The province said it completed a record 58,037 tests on Thursday — which is well above its goal of 50,000 tests per day — but there is still a backlog of 54,241.
Another 20 new deaths were reported, bringing the total number of people who have died from the virus in the province to 3,595 — a majority (2,283) of them living in long-term care.
The province also reported 122 new school-related cases of COVID-19 with 1,180 in the last 14 days.
There are currently 151 people being treated in intensive care units, with 101 of them on ventilators. The province warns the number of patients in intensive care is expected to hit 200 by the end of December.
In an update to its COVID-19 projections on Thursday — the first one since the lockdown took effect on Monday — health officials said Ontario could see 9,000 daily new cases of COVID-19 by the end of next month.
New provincial data show COVID-19 hospitalizations in Ontario went up more than 63 per cent over the last four weeks and that deaths in long-term care homes are rising, even though the number of cases among staff and residents appears to be flattening
