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Ontario Premier Doug Ford will hold a press conference starting at 1pm at Queen’s Park. Ford’s office says he will be joined by the health minister and the head of the province’s vaccine distribution task force.
You can watch it live in this story.
Ontario reported an additional 1,855 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday as its labs processed more than 58,000 tests, both of which are one-day records with sizable margins.
New cases include 517 in the Peel region, 494 in Toronto, 189 in the York region and 130 in the Halton region.
They push the seven-day average of daily cases to 1,489, the highest since Ontario’s first confirmed infection was reported in late January.
Other public health units that saw double-digit increases were:
- Hamilton: 82
- Waterloo Region: 74
- Durham Region: 65
- Ottawa: 55
- Windsor-Essex: 52
- Simcoe Muskoka: 38
- Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph: 27
- Niagara: 20
- Brant County: 16
- Huron Perth: 14
- Gray Bruce: 11
- Middlesex-London: 10
- Haldimand-Norfolk: 10
There are also 122 school-related infections, 99 students and 23 staff members. There are 671 publicly funded schools in Ontario, or about 14%, with at least one reported case of COVID-19. Six schools are closed due to outbreaks.
[Note: All of the figures used in this story are found on the Ministry of Health’s COVID-19 dashboard or in its Daily 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.]There are currently 13,255 confirmed and active cases of the disease across the province, the highest number ever recorded in Ontario.
The 58,037 test samples processed since the last provincial update are almost 10,000 more than the previous maximum, recorded on 8 October. At the end of September, the province abandoned offering tests to anyone who wanted them.
The province also recorded another 20 deaths related to the disease, pushing the official death toll to 3,595. So far this month, 450 people with COVID-19 have died in Ontario.
And there’s more.
Looking for more information on the COVID-19 situation in Ontario? This CBC News news can help:
What does the latest modeling suggest?
Ontario health officials warn that the province remains in a “precarious situation” but has the ability to keep the daily rate of cases around the 1,500 mark.
What does the province recommend for the Christmas holidays?
Celebrate with your family only, the guide comes from the government.
And for everyday life?
In Toronto, where a lockdown is in place, Dr. Eileen de Villa, the city’s health officer, has warned residents that COVID-19 is hitting nearly all neighborhoods hard.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, health medical officer Dr Eileen de Villa said that “the easier it is” for COVID-19 to spread, “the worse it gets for people.” 1:20
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