Ontario’s COVID-19 death toll passes 4,000 as new cases top 2,100

December 16, 2020Julia Mastroianni

A photo of Women's College Hospital in Toronto

Ontario reported 2,139 new cases of COVID-19 on December 16, surpassing the 2,000 mark for a second consecutive day.

The increase comes as the provincial death toll passes 4,000 and hospitals brace for a post-holiday spike in January.

The gradually increasing COVID-19 case counts has prompted the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) to call an emergency board meeting on Wednesday to discuss “an imminent risk of overwhelming conditions because of the COVID-19 pandemic,” OHA president Anthony Dale said on Twitter.

Though a COVID-19 vaccine pilot project has begun in Toronto and Ottawa, Health Minister Christine Elliott asked Ontarians not to celebrate holidays with people outside their households to prevent a spike in infections in January.

“The numbers are very concerning because we see that many of our hospitals are encountering some surges and capacity concerns,” she said during a press briefing at Queen’s Park on Tuesday. “This time next year will be very different. We will be able to resume our holiday celebrations.”

Hospitalizations are inching closer to the 1,000 mark, with 932 patients currently in hospital and 256 of those in intensive care. There are 157 patients on ventilators, up one from the day before.

Hospitalizations peaked at 1,043 in Ontario during the first wave of the pandemic.

Another 43 people died in the past 24 hours, with 199 deaths recorded from COVID-19 over the past week. A total of 4,035 people have died in Ontario since the outbreak began in January.

Of today’s deaths, 22 are long-term care residents. There are 135 long-term care homes currently in outbreak, up one from yesterday.

The province detected 2,275 new cases on Wednesday, a new record high since the beginning of the pandemic. There were 1,940 cases on Monday and 1,677 on Sunday.

The GTA and Windsor-Essex continue to lead the province in daily case counts.

Locally, there are 780 new cases in Toronto, 528 in Peel, 148 in York Region, 143 in Durham and 111 in Windsor-Essex County.

The seven-day rolling average is now at 1,962.

Labs in the province completed 49,189 tests in the past 24 hours, marking a 4.3 per cent positivity rate.

School-related cases make up 223 of today’s new cases, with 188 new student cases and 34 among staff. There are 20 schools currently closed due to an outbreak, and 933 schools have a reported case as of December 16.

To date, there have been 146,535 total COVID-19 cases in Ontario, including 125,416 resolved – up 2,043 from the day before.