Ontario reported another 151 lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases this afternoon.
Information for all the new cases reported today is listed simply as "pending."
The total for the province has now jumped over 1,000 with 1,144 confirmed cases of the virus.
As of Friday, there were at least 35 lab-confirmed cases in the Simcoe Muskoka region, but the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit has said it will not be updating their specific numbers over the weekend.
While the number of lab-confirmed cases has risen dramatically across the province, the number of people using the drive-through assessment centre at Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital is declining at a steady rate.
Over its first two days of operation, more than 400 people showed up to be assessed. Just over 10 per cent were sent inside the hospital for testing.
But then, the number of people attending the centre began to decline while the number of those sent to testing rose.
Over the next five days - from March 21 to March 25 - 299 people attended the new centre at the west side of the hospital. Of those, 59 - or almost 20 per cent - were sent for testing.
That seems to indicate that people have begun to hear health officials’ message to only attend the centre if they are experiencing serious symptoms.
If you think you have symptoms or have been in close contact with someone who has COVID-19, please review the self-assessment tool to help you determine if you need to come to the assessment centre. The Orillia centre is open daily from 11 a.m. – 7 p.m. (The last patient will be seen at 6:30 p.m.)
Click here to read our initial story about the assessment centre and its protocol.
To date, the province has reported there are 18 COVID-19 deaths, but two have not been lab confirmed.
There have been three deaths in Simcoe-Muskoka - including a woman in her 70s in Orillia who was declared a 'community transmission' case because she had not travelled nor did she have any contact with anyone who travelled. Three other confirmed Orillia cases and one confirmed from Oro-Medonte are all self-isolating.
At a press conference Friday afternoon, Dr. Barbara Yaffe, the province’s associate chief medical officer of health, said 60 people with COVID-19 are currently hospitalized, while 43 of them are in intensive care and 32 are using ventilators.
This week marked the first time Ontario reported triple digit increases in COVID-19 confirmed cases with 100 on Wednesday, 170 on Thursday, and 135 yesterday.
On Friday, the province didn’t post a list of information for the new cases, and instead stated all information on the new cases was “pending.” Previously, the Ontario website reported information such as age, gender, travel or community transmission, health unit where the case was confirmed, and status of the patient.
This week, Canada surpassed 4,500 confirmed cases of the virus and there have been at least 53 people who have died in Canada after testing positive for COVID-19.
The death toll for COVID-19 has now surpassed that of SARS. In 2003, Canada reported 438 probable and suspect SARS cases and 44 deaths related to the virus. Those deaths occurred over six months.
The first death attributed to COVID-19 in Canada was reported on March 8, 2020.
- With files from Erika Engel
