Ontario reports 4,301 new COVID-19 cases over two days

December 26, 2020NOW Staff

A photo of a person walking past a restaurant open for takeout during the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto

Ontario reported more than 4,300 new COVID-19 cases over on December 25 and 26.

On Saturday, the province confirmed a daily increase of 2,142 new infections and another 2,159 a day earlier. Public health officials took a day off from reporting COVID-19 data on Christmas Day.

Another 81 people died in the past 48 hours – 43 as of December 25 and 38 more since then. Of those deaths, 39 were long-term care home residents.

There are 755 COVID-19 patients in hospital across the province, including 286 in intensive care.

“Today, there are 541 new cases in Toronto, 344 in Peel, 262 in York Region, 136 in Hamilton and 131 in Windsor-Essex,” Christine Elliott said on Twitter.

The province confirmed a record high 2,447 infections on Thursday, 2,408 new cases on Wednesday, 2,202 on Tuesday and 2,123 on Monday.

Confirmed active cases in the province are approaching 20,000 – an all-time high.

Testing data and per cent positivity was not reported today.

Ontario entered a province-wide lockdown just after midnight this morning. Though many regions in the GTA were already in lockdown, the new measures will see more retail stores close, schools switch to remote learning and capacity limits applied to supermarkets and pharmacies.

The measures will remain in place in Northern Ontario until January 9 and Southern Ontario until January 23.

Ford announced the lockdown on December 21 after holding emergency talks with hospital CEOs and cabinet officials.

Provincial data projections predicted “hard” lockdowns similar to those in France and Australia would lower daily new cases to below 1,000 per day.

Under all forecasting scenarios, intensive care unit admissions will rise to above 300 within 10 days.

Since the pandemic began, there have been 169,411 cases in Ontario, including deaths and recoveries.

The province has vaccinated 10,756 people to date with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. Federal regulators approved a second vaccine from Moderna earlier this week. Doses are expected to arrive in the province before the end of the month.