Public health officials in Waterloo Region are reporting 189 new cases of COVID-19 and two more deaths from the disease.
Wednesday’s online COVID-19 dashboard update saw the total number of cases increase from 6,480 to 6,669. The epi-curve showing cases by reported date show that 132 of those cases were reported on Jan. 5, meaning that 52 others have been added to totals from previous days.
The region’s daily updates include cases from midnight to 11:59 p.m. the day before.
On Wednesday morning, Ontario’s health minister reported that the region had more than 200 new cases of COVID-19.
In an emailed statement, a Region of Waterloo Public Health spokesperson said that a difference in case reporting times “often accounts for differences in daily reporting.”
“Today’s numbers for Ontario’s data page will be from Monday afternoon to Tuesday afternoon,” the spokesperson said.
“Our local reporting cycle is from 12:00 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. so we need time to collate the data before releasing the update at 1:30 p.m.,” a Twitter post from the health unit read in part.
The public health dashboard shows that two more people in the region had died, bringing the death count to 171.
Another 92 cases were also resolved on Wednesday, bringing that total to 5,687. There are now 803 active cases in the region, the most there have ever been. It’s more than double the number of active cases seen during the peak of the first wave, the dashboard shows.
Wednesday’s update also saw the number of active outbreaks drop by three. There are still 31 active outbreaks in the region.
RAPID GROWTH IN PAST 47 DAYS
Ontario surpassed 200,000 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday. That milestone means that it took just 47 days to double its case count, showing how rapidly the virus has spread during the second wave of the pandemic.
By contrast, it took the province 287 days to records its first 100,000 cases.
The province also saw a record-number of hospitalized patients on Wednesday, with 1,463 people. Of the total number of patients, 361 are in an ICU, with 246 of those breathing with the assistance of a ventilator.
There have been a total of 200,626 cases of COVID-19 cases in the province since the pandemic began, including 169,795 cases that have recovered and 4,767 deaths.
