TORONTO -- Ontario health officials are reporting no new COVID-19-related deaths in the province for the first time in months.
Since late March, Ontario has recorded multiple deaths related to the novel coronavirus each day. To date, the province has reported that a total of 2,689 people have died due to the disease.
During the peak period, the province saw dozens of deaths per day. Provincial health officials reported the highest single-day death count on April 30, saying that 86 people died due to the disease within a 24-hour period.
"We are very encouraged that the number of deaths continues to go down every week as the total deaths per week has not exceeded 50 for four weeks in a row," Ontario’s Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Barbara Yaffe told reporters on Monday afternoon.
Monday's news on the zero new deaths comes as the health officials also reported a slight uptick in the number of new COVID-19 cases.
Officials confirmed an additional 154 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Monday, which is a slight increase from the 138 cases recorded on Sunday and the 121 recorded on Saturday.
The recent infections bring Ontario’s total number of lab-confirmed cases of the disease to 35,948, including the 2,689 deaths and 31,426 recoveries.
Where are the COVID-19 cases?
Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott said that 29 of the province’s 34 public health units have reported five or fewer new cases of the disease on Monday, with 18 of them reporting no new cases at all.
According to Monday’s epidemiology report, 43 of the new cases were found in Peel Region, 12 were found in York Region, 59 were found in Toronto, and four were found in Windsor-Essex, a region that has grappled with outbreaks among migrant workers.
Of the new cases in Ontario, 109 are between the ages of 20 and 59. There are 10 patients who are 19 years old or younger and 35 patients who are over the age of 59.
The majority of total deaths to date have been reported in people over the age of 70. One person, under the age of 19, who had COVID-19 died in Ontario, but it is not clear if the death was caused by the disease or other health issues.
Eleven patients who died were between the ages of 20 and 39, while 108 were between the ages of 40 and 59 and 717 were between the ages of 60 and 79.
More than 1,800 people over the age of 80 have died of the disease, many of whom lived in long-term care homes.
As of Monday, there were 118 people in the hospital due to COVID-19. Thirty-six of those patients are in the intensive care unit and 21 of them are breathing with the assistance of ventilators.
COVID-19 testing in Ontario
In the last 24 hours, just over 17,000 COVID-19 tests were conducted by officials.
Ontario health officials have conducted more than 1.5 million tests for the disease since the pandemic was declared.
More than 8,931 tests are still under investigation.