Ontario is finally back on track when it comes to COVID-19 testing
After more than a week of inexplicably failing to meet COVID-19 testing targets, Ontario's public health units appear to have ramped up their operations enough to satisfy the provincial government.
More than 17,615 tests for the highly-contagious 2019 novel coronavirus were completed across the province on Wednesday, according to the Ministry of Health's dedicated COVID-19 web portal.
This is up from a respectable (but less than adequate) 15,133 tests performed Tuesday, 9,875 on Monday and 8,170 on Sunday.
In fact, March 27 marked the first time in 10 days that Ontario had actually met its own target of more than 16,000 tests, which is good news as the province beings to reopen and transition into "a new normal."
#COVID19 testing in #Ontario🧪🇨🇦
— Dr. Jennifer Kwan (@jkwan_md) May 28, 2020
-% positive 2.2% - (orange)
-Testing: 17615 today (red)
-Backlog: 11868 pending today (green)
Hope testing continues to ramp up!#onhealth #COVIDー19 #COVID19ON #CovidTesting pic.twitter.com/PPzpWYIRGP
We're not yet hitting the system's purported capacity of 21,000 tests per day, but the province is in much better shape right now than it was last week, both in terms of testing and new case numbers.
A dismal 5,813 tests were completed last Monday amid a surge in the number of newly-confirmed cases — a surge which has only just started to peter off as test numbers rise again.
Only 383 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed across Ontario on Wednesday, representing an overall increase rate of 1.4 per cent.
While up from the 292 new cases recorded Tuesday and the 287 recorded Monday, the province is still tracking below 400 cases per day this week — which is something we haven't been able to say with any consistency since Victoria Day.
#Covid19Ontario Update: Just like we shouldn't have jumped to conclusions with the sudden drop two days ago, we shouldn't read too much into today's bump to 383 new cases. Follow the trends. Tests administered dipped a bit but still over 17,000 as more tests were completed. pic.twitter.com/6bBl7XBuZl
— Claudio D (@Jacquecoobo) May 28, 2020
As of May 27 at 4 p.m., a total of 26,866 cases of COVID-19 had been confirmed within the province. With 20,673 of those cases now considered to be "resolved," Ontario is posting a recovery rate of 76.9 per cent.
A total of 2,189 deaths have been logged through the province's integrated Public Health Information System to date, 34 of them on Wedneday.
This makes for an overall mortality rate of 8. 1 per cent as of May 27, with 62.9 per cent of all deaths observed among patients in long-term care homes.
It remains to be seen if case numbers will stay down and testing rates stay sufficient enough to detect new outbreaks quickly in the coming weeks. We've been here before, after all, and it didn't exactly stick.
