Ontario is seeing a lot of optimistic trends as case counts over the past five days have been increasing at the low rate of 1.5 to 1.8-percent per day.
According to the Associate Chief Medical Officer, last week the average number of people an infected person gives COVID-19 to was lower than one additional person.
Dr. Barbara Yaffe says there are now 180 active outbreaks in Ontario long-term care homes, with a total 1,269 resident deaths and five staff deaths. A total 71 retirement homes have reported outbreaks, with a total 169 deaths overall.
And as more businesses prepare to get back to work, Dr. Yaffe says Ontario Public Health is closely monitoring the targets set by the Premier. She says there’s no black and white number that the province reaches that a light switch can be turned on to reopen.
Yaffe says OPH is looking at trends, which she says are already quite promising. She says the agency is focusing more now on case and contact follow-up. Yaffe says the aim is to have fewer cases where it is not known where the infection came from. She also says a new lab testing strategy will be announced soon to better identify and treat the “beginning of any problem” before it escalates.