UPDATE, 5:30 p.m: Ten additional COVID-19 cases are being reported today, boosting Ontario's total confirmed cases to 318.
More than half of the additional cases are self isolation in Middlesex London, with further details provided.
Three cases are seniors in self isolation at a Haliburton Kawartha nursing home.
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One additional COVID-19 case in York Region is being reported this morning, March 20, while the province has added 50 confirmed cases, bringing Ontario's total to 308.
The York case, which may have been previously reported by York Region public health as a male aged in his 30s in Markham, who had returned from travel in the Caribbean, is in self-isolation.
The province has been lagging behind in its reporting, according to a Region of York spokesperson Patrick Casey, who confirmed the regional reporting is accurate.
Again today, no details regarding gender, age, location, cause of transmission and status are being provided for more than half of the confirmed cases on the province's dedicated website.
Last night, March 19, York Region public health reported three additional confirmed COVID-19 cases, in Markham and Richmond Hill, bringing the regional total to 27.
As for the additional confirmed cases with details reported in Ontario today, they are travel related and close contact in Toronto, Peel, Durham, Hamilton, Peterborough, Hastings Prince Edward, Waterloo and Ottawa. Four cases are at a long-term care centre in Durham, with cause of transmission not identified.
To date in Ontario, 19,511 individuals have been tested for coronavirus, with 5,485 awaiting results currently, and 13,718 have tested negative. Five of the cases have been resolved and two patients are deceased.
Canada’s public health website states there are 846 cases of COVID-19 in the country as of last night, but that doesn’t include Ontario’s 50 reported this morning. British Columbia has the highest number of confirmed cases with 271 last night, not including numbers reported this morning.
Alberta, which has confirmed 146 cases, had its first COVID-19-related death yesterday. Schools have been closed in the province for the rest of the year. High school classes have moved online for the remainder of the school year.
Premier Doug Ford, Deputy Premier and Minister of Health Christine Elliott, Deputy Premier and Minister of Health Stephen Lecce are scheduled to make an announcement at 12:30 today at Queen's Park.
According to a CBC question and answer with Dr. Michael Gardam, we’re not going to know how many people in the province or the country actually have or have had COVID-19.
Gardam, the infections disease specialist and chief of staff at Humber River Hospital, said the amount of testing being done will shift to focus on people who are being hospitalized.
Chief Public Health Officer of Canada Dr. Theresa Tam said the daily confirmed cases count reflects testing done days ago, and those people would have spent several days with the virus before developing symptoms.
Tam, during a Thursday news conference, urged Canadians to do their part in not only flattening the epidemic curve, but “planking” it through diligent social distancing and self-isolation.
You can take a self-assessment here.
— With files from Erika Engel
