Ontario reports 260 new cases of COVID-19, 33 deaths

TORONTO, ON. March 31, 2020 – Today, as of 10:30 am Ontario reported 260 new cases of COVID-19, which is 91 fewer than yesterday’s report of 351 cases, bringing Ontario’s total to 1966 cases of COVID-19 including 33 deaths and 534 recoveries.

Ontario no longer releases details on every case but GTA public health units account for 59/1% of cases. 980 are male, 974 are female and 76.1% of the cases are between the ages of 20 and 64. 21.4% are 65 or older and 2.3% are under the age of 20.

10.9% of cases were hospitalized and 27 deaths have been reported (please note there may be a reporting delay for deaths in iPHIS).

Of all cases, 25.7% had travelled in the 14 days prior to becoming ill, 10.2% had close contact with a confirmed case, 16.8% had neither and 47.3% have exposure information pending.

Ontario’s daily summary is based on data reported by the 34 public health units across Ontario and recorded in the province’s integrated Public Health Information System (iPHIS). iPHIS is the Ministry of Health’s disease reporting system where data is regularly updated. Data for each day’s summary will be pulled from iPHIS at 4:00 p.m. the previous day.

COVID-19 cases in Canada

In Canada there are 7,708 cases. Of the COVID-19 cases reported in Canada to date, approximately half (51%) are male. Approximately one third (29%) of cases are 60 years old and over (Figure 3).

Ninety people have died (up from 68 yesterday) of COVID-19 to date in Canada. 33 in Ongario, 25 in Quebec, 19 in B.C., 8 in Alberta, 2 in Sasaktchewan and one in both Manitoba and Newfoundland.

There are now more than 700,000 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 33,000 deaths.

Symptoms and severity

Commonly reported symptoms among reported cases include: cough (79%), chills (55%), and headaches (56%).

Based on case reports received to date, 278 cases have been hospitalized, including 84 in intensive care.

Probable exposure setting

At this time, 65% of all COVID-19 cases were related to community transmission, while 35% were either exposed while travelling or exposed to a traveller returning to Canada (Figure 4).