Ontario's new coronavirus cases slow as known cases pass 20,000

The number of new coronavirus cases discovered in Ontario every day appears to be slowing down, as the province announced the lowest number of new cases in more than a month for two days in a row this weekend.

Between Saturday and Sunday, 294 new coronavirus cases were discovered. The day before, 346 were discovered. That’s lower than days in April when the province was discovering more than 600 new cases every day.

The total known case count in Ontario new sits at 20,238.

But about 73% of those cases (or 14,772 patients) are now considered recovered.

Ontario also reported 35 more deaths Sunday morning, bringing the province’s death toll to 1,634.

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According to the Public Health Ontario Daily Epidemiologic Summary (iPHIS), a total of 239 outbreaks at long-term care homes have been reported (although some have been resolved).

Government of Ontario

According to Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Ontario relies on local public health units to report on the coronavirus, both in the community and in long-term care homes, through iPHIS, of which there is a delay in the data being received.

At the same time, the Ministry of Long-Term Care has started collecting information about coronavirus in long-term care homes through its network of inspectors.

The Greater Toronto Area public health units account for more than half of the cases at 61.7%.

Of the total cases, 42% of patients are male and 57.2% of patients are female, with 43.3% of cases happening in people age 60 years and older.

Government of Ontario

The daily summary is based on data reported by the 34 public health units across Ontario and recorded in the province’s integrated Public Health Information System (iPHIS), according to the Ontario government.

iPHIS is the Ministry of Health’s disease reporting system where data is regularly updated, and where each daily summary is pulled at 4 pm the previous day.