Ontario sees second day in a row of more than 400 new coronavirus cases

Ontario discovered 407 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, the second day in a row with numbers not seen since June.

Premier Doug Ford called the uptick in new cases “alarming” in a news release Saturday, adding he’s reducing private social gathering limits across the entire province.

These latest cases bring Ontario’s active case count to 2,881. Toronto saw the highest number of new cases with 129, Peel followed with 94, and Ottawa had 55.

Health Minister Christine Elliott tweeted Saturday that new pop-up testing centres are coming to those three municipalities to deal with increased demand.

In response to growing demand for testing, Ontario Health has increased capacity at eight assessment centres across Toronto, Peel and Ottawa with seven pop-ups launched in the regions and more coming to help increase access and cut down wait times.

— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) September 19, 2020

One more person has died of COVID-19, bringing Ontario’s death toll to 2,826.

• See also:
  • Ontario reports over 400 new coronavirus cases, highest numbers in over 3 months
  • Lower social gathering limits extended across all of Ontario
  • Four coronavirus-positive patrons visited Rebel nightclub last week

There was also a slight increase in hospitalizations, with 64 coronavirus patients currently in hospital including 20 who are in the ICU.

The province has now seen 46,484 coronavirus cases since the pandemic began. Most of them, 40,777, are considered resolved.