Ontario reports 1,676 new COVID-19 cases

December 8, 2020Julia Mastroianni

A photo of a handmade social distancing sign in Toronto on December 3, 2020.

Ontario reported 1,676 new cases of COVID-19 and 10 new deaths on December 8.

Today’s count marks a drop over yesterday’s all-time high of 1,925. The previous record for a single-day increase was 1,924 on Sunday.

There are 588 new cases in Toronto, 349 in Peel and 141 in York Region.

Ontario currently has 16,151 active cases, with 794 patients hospitalized. There are 219 patients in intensive care, and 132 of those patients are on ventilators.

The province completed 39,198 tests in the past 24 hours, marking a 5 per cent positivity rate. There is a testing backlog of 40,732.

In the past week, there have been 145 deaths across the province. The seven-day rolling average has slightly decreased from the day before to 1,816 today.

Of the 10 deaths reported on December 8, five were among long-term care residents. In Ontario, there are 116 long-term care homes currently in outbreak.

There are an additional 333 new school-related cases, with 278 among students and 55 among staff. Across the province, there are now 853 schools with a reported case. One more school has closed due to an outbreak in the past day, marking 11 schools total in Ontario that have closed due to the virus.

To date, there have been 130,910 total COVID-19 cases in Ontario, with
110,951 resolved – up 1,549 from the day before. A total of 3,808 people have died.

It’s been two weeks since Ontario moved Toronto and Peel Region in lockdown, meaning public health officials will be watching indicators to see if the measures are flattening the curve.

On Monday, Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health warned the virus is “spreading aggressively” in the city, but institutional outbreaks have dropped. Between December 1 and 7, Toronto confirmed 1,401 cases and 68 deaths.