TORONTO -- Ontario health officials are reporting a slight dip in the number of new COVID-19 cases as the province prepares to announce Stage 3 of its reopening plan.
The 116 new cases reported Monday is a slight decrease from the 129 reported on Sunday and the 130 reported on Saturday.
“Having seen a continued decline in the number of new COVID-19 cases as the province entered Stage 2, and with hospitalizations being at all-time lows, today we’re providing details about Stage 3 of our plan to continue the safe and gradual reopening,” Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott said on Monday.
The province also reported that three more people have died due to COVID-19. Ontario’s total number of lab-confirmed cases of the disease now amounts to 36,839, including 2,722 deaths and 32,663 recoveries.
Where are the COVID-19 cases?
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 21 of them reporting no new cases at all.
According to Monday's epidemiology report, 38 of the new cases were found in Peel Region, six were found in York Region, 34 were found in Toronto and 15 were found in Windsor-Essex, a region that has been grappling with outbreaks among migrant workers.
Of the new cases in Ontario, 88 are between the ages of 20 and 59. There are nine patients who are 19 years old or younger and 18 patients who are over the age of 59.
The majority of total deaths to date have been reported in people over the age of 79. One person under the age of 19 who had COVID-19 has 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 111 were between the ages of 40 and 59, and 723 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 104 people in the hospital due to COVID-19. Twenty-eight of those patients are in the intensive care unit and 20 of them are breathing with the assistance of ventilators.
“The number of COVID-19 patients receiving care in hospital has dropped significantly from the highs of over 1,000 reported in May,” Elliott said in a statement posted to Twitter.
“ICU admissions and vented patients have also seen a persistent decline since the peak of this pandemic.”
COVID-19 testing in Ontario
In the last 24 hours, just over 20,000 COVID-19 tests were conducted by officials.
Ontario health officials have conducted more than 1.7 million tests for the disease since the pandemic was declared.
More than 7,000 tests are still under investigation.