This is the Thursday, December 31, 2020 coronavirus update. Active cases are higher today in Oakville and much higher in Halton. Oakville reports its 2,000th case. Hospitalizations are unchanged locally, but they are growing both faster and to daily record highs both in Ontario and nationwide.
Ontario's new and active cases set pandemic-high records by the hundreds for the second day in a row. The conditions in Ontario are close to the worst-case scenario that was forecasted four weeks ago. In good news, vaccinations across Canada will exceed 100,000 later today.
Note: Oakville figures are updated seven days a week with Ontario and Global cases. Provincial school updates are temporarily paused under shutdown until in-person classes resume.
Oakville and Halton coronavirus cases update
- Cumulative cases in Oakville reach 2,000 as town reports 17 new cases for the second straight day
- Active cases are still rising both in town and across Halton
- Hospitalizations in Halton are up 20%, most from Jospeh Brant Hospital in Burlington
- Halton Regional Health issues warning to stay home for the holidays, including warnings against both indoor and outdoor gatherings (now including New Year's Eve)
- Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital is announced to be a new delivery site for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine
Changes in figures are since the Oakville News update on December 30, 2020.
- 166 active cases - plus 5
- 29 patients at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital - no change
- 2,014 total cases (confirmed and probable) - plus 17
- 39 deaths - no change
- 1,809 recoveries (89.8% of all cases) - plus 12
- 1,848 completed (recoveries+deaths) cases - 91.7% of cases
- 6 outbreaks - no change
Oakville LTC & Retirement home COVID-19 Status
Below is an updating table of data from long-term care and retirement homes in Oakville:
Status in Halton
- 580 active cases - plus 24
- 62 cases in hospitals across Halton - minus 4
- 5,901 total cases (confirmed+probable) - plus 95
- 108 deaths - plus 1
- 5,213 recoveries (88.3% of all cases) - plus 70
- 5,321 completed (recoveries+deaths) cases - 90.1% of cases
- 38 outbreaks - plus 1
Note: Halton Region's recovery count is combined into one number with probable, now closed cases. This total includes some cases that were not coronavirus recoveries.
Ontario coronavirus update
- Ontario set a new one-day record of 3,328 new cases - the second straight day by hundreds more new cases than ever before
- Provincial active cases rise by over 1,000 today
- Finance minister Rod Phillips has resigned from Premier Doug Ford's cabinet, effective immediately, after he arrived in Ontario this morning from his highly criticized Caribbean holiday (knowingly breaking provincial health guidelines)
- Hospitalizations and ICU patients are also at record-highs
- Today's totals, again, are unassociated with reporting errors
- The first shipment of Moderna vaccines have arrived in Ontario
Changes are from yesterday’s figures. Information released as of December 31, 2020 for the end of day yesterday.
- 21,617 active cases - plus 1,059
- 1,235 people hospitalized - plus 58
- 24,400+ people vaccinated - plus ~1800
- 182,159 confirmed cases - plus 3,328
- 156,012 recovered cases - plus 2,213
- 4,530 deaths - plus 56
- 160,542 resolved cases (deaths & recovered) or 88.1%
- 63,858 tests conducted, coming back 5.7% positive
- 337 people in ICU - plus 14
- 210 people on ventilators - plus 6
Summary of Institutional Outbreaks (Long Term Care Homes, Retirement Homes, Hospitals)
- 1,634 total outbreaks reported - plus 13
- 366 active, ongoing outbreaks - plus 3
Canada and Global coronavirus update
- Active cases in Canada will be unverified until next week as some provinces are only providing partial data over the holidays
- The National Advisory Committee on Immunization makes recommendations on who should be vaccinated first
- Nationwide cases reach 580,000
- Quebec and Alberta set new one-day case records (Alberta also reaches 100,000 total cases to date)
- Canada will begin requiring a negative COVID-19 test for all arriving international air travellers
- Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) says Canada will have enough doses of COVID-19 vaccine to vaccinate everyone in the country who wants to be by the end of September 2021 (public vaccinations are expected to begin in April 2021)
- More than two million Americans have received the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine
Changes in Canadian and global figures are since the last Oakville News update, December 30, 2020. With the high number of cases nationwide and globally, all numbers are approximate (within 0.1% of the total.)
- 76,000+ active cases (unverified)
- 91,400+ people vaccinated - plus 10,600
- 580,500+ confirmed and suspected cases
- 15,597 deaths - plus 154
- 488,925 recoveries
- 504,522 resolved cases (86.9% of all cases)
United States coronavirus update
- 19.8 million total cases (23.8% worldwide)
- 342,500+ deaths (18.8% worldwide)
- 125,000+ hospitalizations
- Several states have controversially slowed or paused reporting for this week for the holidays with inflated numbers expected next week
- 39 of the 50 states report over 5% of their population has been infected; 14 states report their rate is above 7.5%
World coronavirus update
- 82.8 million cases globally
- 1.8 million+ deaths
- Brazil becomes the third country to reach 7.5 million cases (after USA and India)
- France becomes the fifth to reach 2.5 million (fourth is Russia)
