Newswatch COVID-19 Digest: Saturday October 31, 2020

Here are the latest local, regional and national headlines on the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) for Saturday, October 31, 2020:

  • There have been 74,715 confirmed cases of COVID-19 across Ontario, an increase of 896 (or 1.2 per cent) from the previous day. There are 63,919 people recovered from the virus while 3,127 people have died. The number of Ontario people tested is 5,068,007 of which 41,063 have pending results.
  • Canada’s coronavirus case total is 231,999. The country has 10,110 deaths from the virus – one in the Yukon, 263 in British Columbia, 323 in Alberta, 25 in Saskatchewan, 65 in Manitoba, 3,127 in Ontario, 6,231 in Quebec, six in New Brunswick, four in Newfoundland & Labrador and 65 in Nova Scotia.
  • Yukon has recorded its first COVID-19 death in the territory since the pandemic began in March. Yukon’s chief medical officer of health says the person died at home Thursday, according to local radio station The Rush (CKRW). They were older and had underlying health conditions. The victim was part of a cluster of five cases in Watson Lake, 430 kilometers southeast of Whitehorse, along the Yukon-B.C. border.
  • The Eastern Ontario Health Unit added six cases Friday – four in Prescott-Russell and two in Cornwall – to bring the regional total to 607 confirmed cases. There are seven people hospitalized, two of them in ICU. Of all cases, 193 are active and 395 are resolved. Nineteen people have died. There are four active institutional outbreaks. Testing increased by 429 to 74,328. The breakdown of cases is: Prescott-Russell 431 cases (132 active), SD&G 105 cases (31 active) and Cornwall 71 cases (30 active).
  • The Eastern Ontario medical officer of health says many of the Cornwall COVID-19 cases are not due to community spread. Read that story here.
  • A Cornwall doctor’s office is closed for two weeks after the facility says it had a positive COVID-19 case within their office. The office of Dr. Jo-Ann Dorothy Toop and Dr. Brent Robert Patterson has been closed since Oct. 26 and will be reopening Monday, Nov. 9, according to the office voicemail. Medical Officer of Health Dr. Paul Roumeliotis told Cornwall Newswatch that based on their followup “we have no concern about the public being exposed and all staff have been contacted” by the health unit.
  • The Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health Unit area had one new case Friday to bring the regional total to 453 confirmed cases. There are 22 active cases and 378 are recovered. The breakdown is: Leeds-Grenville East (one active), Leeds-Grenville Central (three active), Leeds-Grenville West (one active), Lanark County West (three active) and Lanark County East (11 active). The total number of deaths is 53. There are three institutional outbreaks – two nursing homes in Brockville (St. Lawrence Lodge and Wedgewood Retirement) and one in Smiths Falls (Broadview).
  • Premier Doug Ford’s constituency office in North Etobicoke has been closed indefinitely after a number of staff members tested positive for COVID-19. The premier’s spokesman says Ford hasn’t visited the office in the past two weeks. Ford said Friday that it’s believed the staff caught the virus from visitors.
  • The country’s chief public health officer says Canadians are going to have to think differently about how to celebrate events like Christmas and the new year. Dr. Theresa Tam’s warning comes as current modelling shows that under the current rate people are having contact with others, cases could explode by December.
  • Aboriginal communities will receive $204 million more for child care, education and to improve infrastructure to meet health and safety standards during the pandemic.
  • U.S. President Donald Trump told supporters in Wisconsin Friday the fear of the virus is overblown, even as confirmed cases in the country have surpassed nine million. The number of infections grew by one million in two weeks – deaths were up 14 per cent during the same time period.

Have a story or news release related to COVID-19? Send it along for possible inclusion in a future digest on Cornwall Newswatch. Email editor@cornwallnewswatch.com. Please put “COVID-19 Digest” in the subject line.