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Ontario reports overall COVID-19 numbers slowing but more cases and deaths than the past two days

TORONTO, ON., May 2, 2020 — Today Ontario public health officials reported 511 new COVID-19 infections and 55 new deaths, which is somewhat higher than yesterday’s provincial report of 421 cases and 39 deaths. Ontario’s total case count including recoveries has now risen to 17,119 while the total number of Ontarians who have lost their lives to COVID-19 is now 1,176.

This week’s seven-day numbers are 476, 434, 424, 525, 347, 421 and now 511 respectively, whereas one week ago the province recorded a staggering 640 new cases when they began ramping up the testing.

So, we are seeing some ups and downs, partly due to the larger volume of testing now, but overall the numbers are slowly dropping.

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Province completed 16,305 tests

The province managed to complete another high volume of tests with 16,305 tests conducted yesterday, down slightly from the 16,500 on Friday but now ahead of their goal to be testing 16,000 people a day by May 6. To date, Ontario has conducted 310,359 COVID-19 tests.

Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams said “we’d like to see it progressing even quicker” and that means “everyone needs to adhere to physical distancing as we’re not yet disrupting community transmission adequately at this time.”

Also encouraging is that for the second straight day, the number of patients recovering from COVID-19 (565) exceeded the number of newly-confirmed cases (511).

Ontario’s Premier Ford offered a some encouragement saying, “If we keep going the way we’re going, we’ll be able to get out of this a lot sooner than we thought we would take a couple of months ago,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said of Saturday’s numbers.

Long-term care homes report 37 more deaths

Sadly 578 of the province’s 1,176 deaths have occurred at long-term care centres, 37 more yesterday. Also 5 staff members have lost their lives due to the virus. The total number of active cases in the care homes is 2,682 along with 1,541 staff members. 205 outbreaks have been reported in long-term care homes. This is an increase of 7 outbreaks from the previous report.

Hospitals have also reported 194 staff cases of COVID-19 as well as 27 deaths. There now have been 57 outbreaks in Ontario hospitals, which is up 2 from yesterday.

According to hospital stats provided by the Ontario Ministry of Health from May 1 as of 4:00 pm, the number of hospitalized patients in Ontario due to the virus has dropped by 22 more people over the past two days bringing the total down to 977. Meanwhile, the number of patients in ICU has dropped for the sixth straight day, and as of yesterday there are 222 patients in ICUs. Today, there are also 154 patients currently on ventilators, which has dropped by 27 since Thursday and this number has been dropping for the past six days. Also of note, 2,540 of the total 17,119 cases are healthcare workers.

Ontario daily COVID-19 case counts past 12 days

April 20 – 606, April 21 – 551, April 22 – 510, April 23 – 634, April 24 – 640, April 25 – 476, April 26 – 437, April 27 – 424, April 28 – 525, April 29 – 347, April 30 – 459, May 1 – 421, May 2 – 511

Greater Toronto Area and Toronto COVID-19 case numbers

Greater Toronto Area public health units account for 59.6% of cases, of which 3,802 exist in Toronto, 2,408 in Peel, 465 in Halton, 997 in Durham, and 1,572 in York.

Meanwhile as of 11:00 am today, Toronto Public Health says there are 5,967 people infected with COVID-19 in Toronto. 3,802 people have reported recoveries while there have now been 110 institutional outbreaks within the city. There were 171 new cases reported, which are 20 fewer than the previous day and sadly 4 more deaths. Sadly, Toronto has lost 398 residents to this coronavirus.

Yesterday, Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Eileen de Villa said to beware of fraudsters during the pandemic.

“Earlier this afternoon it came to my attention that there may be people calling residents in our community who are falsely claiming to be Toronto Public Health staff. In one instance, the individual was asked to provide their banking information and their social insurance number. My team would never ask for this information because it is not relevant to our work. If you receive such a call, please do not share your social insurance number or financial information with the caller. Please contact Toronto Police Service to flag this matter.”

In terms of where things are at, Dr. de Villa said, “We need to continue our fight against COVID-19 and we need to keep doing what we can to reduce the spread of this virus in our city. So please continue to stay home, stay safe and take care of each other.”

Dr. de Villa pointed out that with the warmer weather although we all want to be outside, “what continues to best for our community is to stay home as much as possible and to continue practising physical distancing.” “This doesn’t mean you can’t go outside at all,” said Dr. de Villa. “What I’m asking is for you to limit your outings and to make sure you are being careful about practising physical distancing when you do go outside. This is the best way to protect yourself and everyone around you.”