Ontario reports 745 new COVID-19 cases excluding Toronto due to data cleanup – CP24 Toronto’s Breaking News

Ontario reports 745 new COVID-19 cases excluding Toronto due to data cleanup – CP24 Toronto’s Breaking News

Ontario is reporting 745 new infections of COVID-19 on Tuesday but today’s case count does not include numbers from Toronto Public Health (TPH) because of an ongoing data cleanup.

According to the Ministry of Health, TPH reported a negative number of case counts today due to the migration of its data to the provincial data system.

“Most notably, TPH’s case count is negative following the identification of duplicate cases as well as data corrections to some fields (e.g., long-term care home residents and health care workers), resulting in an underestimation of today’s cases,” Health Minister Christine Elliott’s spokesperson said in a statement.

As of today, all of TPH’s data has been migrated to the provincial data system but the ministry said it “anticipates fluctuations in case numbers over the next few days.”

The ministry also said that case counts for other public health units may have been affected by system outages related to this data migration.

The province logged 1,969 new cases on Monday, 1,848 on Sunday, 2,063 on Saturday and 1,837 on Friday.

Provincial health officials are also reporting 14 more deaths on Tuesday, including four among long-term care home residents.

There are currently 240 long-term care homes and 133 retirement homes in Ontario with an active outbreak of COVID-19.

The province’s virus-related death toll now stands at 6,238, and 3,618 are among residents who lived in long-term care.

Provincial health officials also updated the running tally of COVID-19 variants in the province today.

As of Tuesday morning, there are 110 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus variants in the province- 109 of the U.K. variant B.1.1.7 and one of the South African variant B.1.351. Yesterday, the province reported only 69 cases of the variants.

The majority of today’s new COVID-19 infections continue to be throughout the Greater Toronto Area.

“Locally, there are 334 new cases in Peel, 124 in York Region and 65 in Niagara,” Health Minister Christine Elliott tweeted.

Toronto is reporting minus 119 cases of COVID-19, while North Bay Parry Sound and Peterborough are also reporting negative numbers of minus 14 and minus 1, respectively.

Elsewhere in the GTA, Durham Region and Halton Region each reported 44 new COVID-19 cases.

In the past 24-hour span, nearly 28,600 tests were processed, slightly down from 30,359 tests on Monday.

More than 32,300 test specimens are still under investigation.

The province’s test positivity rate, which accounts for test duplicates and errors, is now 4.6 per cent, compared to 5.2 per cent on Monday, according to the Ministry of Health.

According to the province’s latest epidemiological summary, another 2,297 people have recovered from the virus. There are currently 17,451 active cases of the virus across the province.

Provincial health officials said there are 1,192 people in hospitals across the province due to COVID-19 infection. However, local public health units are reporting that there are at least 1,301 patients in hospitals.

Of those hospitalized, the Ministry of Health said 341 are in intensive care units and 253 are breathing with the help of a ventilator.

To date, there have been 270,925 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 across the province since the virus first emerged last January. More than 247,200 people have recovered from the virus.

More than 72,000 vaccinations complete

As of 8 p.m. on Monday, more than 72,000 Ontarians have been fully vaccinated against the virus. Full immunization requires two doses of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine administered a few weeks apart.

More than 344,600 doses of the vaccine have been administered to people across the province since December.

Published at Tue, 02 Feb 2021 15:32:00 +0000