People go for a socially distanced skate at Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto on Jan. 1, 2021.Cole Burston/The Canadian Press
Ontario is reporting an all-time high of 3,363 new COVID-19 cases today, as well as 2,476 cases from New Year’s Day.
Today’s case count is slightly up from Thursday’s total of 3,328 new diagnoses, the previous record for the province.
Health Minister Christine Elliott says the tally includes 713 new cases in Peel, 700 in Toronto, 395 in York Region, 226 in Windsor-Essex County and 171 in Hamilton.
The province says the case numbers may be an underestimate because of a data issue from Toronto Public Health.
The province says 95 more people have died in the two days since its last report.
There are 1,003 hospitalizations in Ontario, with 322 patients in intensive care units, and 220 people on ventilators.
Elsewhere in Canada:
- Health authorities in Nova Scotia are reporting 13 new cases of COVID-19. They say five of the new cases are at Churchill Academy, a private school in Dartmouth, near Halifax. With two cases previously reported at the school, the latest numbers bring the total known infections there to seven. Nova Scotia now has 27 active cases of COVID-19.
- Alberta’s chief medical officer of health says there were an estimated 900 new COVID-19 cases recorded in the province on New Year’s Day. Dr. Deena Hinshaw provided the update in a tweet today. She did not give an update on the number of new COVID-19 deaths in the province. Hinshaw says there was an estimated seven per cent test positivity on about 12,700 labratory tests. She says the number of people with COVID-19 in hospitals and intensive care was stable.
- Health authorities in New Brunswick are reporting 10 new cases of COVID-19. Officials say the new infections are in the Fredericton region and all patients are self-isolating. Chief medical officer of health Dr. Jennifer Russell says the spike in new cases is concerning, but public health suspects a number of the new cases are connected. Russell says contact tracing is underway to find out.
- Newfoundland and Labrador marked its third day in a row with no new cases of COVID-19a as officials confirmed the first doses of the Moderna vaccine arrived in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador on Thursday. The province currently has 11 active cases with one person in hospital.
- Manitoba officials are reporting 11 deaths from COVID-19 over the past two days. The province says in its daily pandemic update that 326 new cases of the virus were identified between 9:30 a.m. on Thursday and 9:30 a.m. today. The province did not issue an update on New Year’s Day. The province says the five-day test positivity rate is 10.4 per cent. There are 239 patients with active COVID-19 in Manitoba hospitals, 36 of whom are in intensive care.
- Saskatchewan is reporting 485 new COVID-19 cases over the past two days, along with three new deaths. The province says that as of Saturday, 3,722 doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine have been administered to health-care workers in Regina and Saskatoon. It says with the arrival of 4,900 doses of the Moderna vaccine, the Far North Central and far North West regions will begin vaccinating priority populations on Monday. The government says 160 people are in hospital with COVID-19, with 33 of those in intensive care.