COVID 19 Update June 29

COVID-19 Update from Mayor Wade Mills June 29, 2020

I hope that everyone had a great weekend and had some time to enjoy the great weather. Today’s update is heavy on the numbers side so I will apologize for that in advance.

Ontario is reporting a spike in the number of new COVID-19 cases with 257 being reported within the past 24 hours. While this number is dramatically higher than recent daily reports, the vast majority of these new cases (177 of them) were all from the Windsor-Essex area. These new cases bring our cumulative reported provincial totals to 34,911 cases, 30,196 resolved cases, and 2,665 total reported deaths.

Within the Wellington Dufferin Guelph Public Health region, we have seen six new cases reported within the past 24 hours bringing the new cumulative total to 476 cases. Currently, there are 49 active cases within the health unit’s jurisdiction area, and two hospitalizations. To drill down further, Dufferin County has seen three new cases within the past 24 hours bringing our cumulative case total to 184. Dufferin County has 13 current active cases and no reported hospitalizations.

Nationally, we have now surpassed 103,000 cumulative cases of COVID-19. More than 8,500 people have died with nearly 5,500 of those within the Province of Quebec. The good news is that the number of tests continues to increase – Ontario set a record last Friday when almost 33,500 tests were completed.

Prime Minister Trudeau held his daily press briefing today as he has been doing since March 13. He announced that he will be scaling back these daily briefings but will continue to provide news updates a few days each week as the country moves forward with re-opening efforts.

As reported last week, Ontario’s province-wide declaration of emergency has been extended to July 15^th. The Premier has also now announced that the various orders made under that declaration have been extended to July 10^th. This remains a fluid situation and we have seen these timeframes extended several times since the emergency declaration was first made. Depending upon the trendline of new cases, the outlook of new modelling data, and the advice of provincial health officials, we may reasonably expect to see those dates extend even further.

Please keep up the great work and I will be back with a further report on Wednesday.

Mayor Wade Mills