Ontario reports 2,417 new COVID-19 cases and 50 more deaths

Ontario reported 2,417 new cases of COVID-19 and 50 more deaths on Sunday.

Today marks the seventh day in a row that the daily new case number is below 3,000.

Toronto has 785 new cases, Peel Region has 404, York Region has 215, and Niagara Region has 121.

The number of people in hospital has declined by 65 and now sits at 1,436.

The number of people in the ICU is down by three and now sits at 392, while the number of people on ventilators has increased by two and is now 301.

A total of 5,803 people have died in Ontario of COVID-19-related reasons.

As of Sunday, 225,046 COVID-19 cases have been marked as resolved, a number that increased by 2,759 since Saturday.

Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott said the province's network of labs completed more than 48,900 tests in the past 24 hours.

As of Saturday evening, 280,573 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered, Elliott said in a tweet.

Toronto marks 1 year since 1st COVID-19 case in city

It's been exactly one year since the first known case of COVID-19 was detected in Toronto.

The 56-year-old man had arrived at Sunnybrook hospital in Toronto with what seemed to be mild pneumonia.

Because he had travelled from China and his X-rays were unusual, the decision was made to admit him.

Samples were sent by cab to the province's public health laboratory, which had been working to come up with a reliable test.

The lab was soon able to confirm the man was infected with what was then the novel coronavirus.

Although "Patient Zero" recovered, nearly 19,000 in Canada have since died from COVID-19.

242 long-term care homes reporting active outbreaks

Meanwhile, the province reported that there are currently 242 active outbreaks in long-term care homes and 161 at retirement homes.

This includes an outbreak of B.1.1.7, the variant of COVID-19 first detected in the United Kingdom, that has spread throughout Roberta Place Long Term Care Home where at least 32 residents have died.

All but 2 of 129 residents at the home have been infected with COVID-19

The Canadian Red Cross was deployed to the home on Jan. 17 to help bring the outbreak under control.

Ontario Labour Minister Monte McNaughton said in an interview with CBC's Rosemary Barton Live on Sunday that the situation at long-term care homes is "very, very concerning."

"Certainly my heart goes out to all of those families affected by COVID-19. We're doing everything humanly possible to protect the residents and protect the workers," he said.

McNaughton said that he thinks there will be word in the next couple of days on a "massive expansion of rapid testing" in long-term care homes and other health care facilities.

"One thing that we know for sure is we need these vaccines. We need to get long-term care residents and long-term care workers and the elderly population vaccinated as quickly as possible," he said.

On Sunday, Ontario Minister of Long-Term Care Merrilee Fullerton tweeted that there are 142 homes with at least one staff member self-isolating and with no residents positive for COVID-19.

She said 113 homes have resident cases, of which 50 have fever than five cases each.

Fullerton said there are a total of 255 LTC homes with COVID-19 cases.

Male teen worker who died of COVID-19 identified

Meanwhile, a male teenager who died of COVID-19 has been identified by the long-term care home near London, Ont., where he worked as Yassin Dabeh.

The Middlesex-London Health Unit has not confirmed Dabeh's workplace or age.

However, in an interview with CBC News on Saturday, Dr. Alex Summers, the health unit's associate medical officer of health, said the teen is the youngest person in the region diagnosed with the virus to die.

Summers said the diagnosis came within the last four weeks, and Dabeh's infectious period had actually ended and that the teen was not working in the home when he was infectious.

Summers could not say whether the teen had underlying health conditions. An investigation into his death is underway he said.

"It's certainly a very sad day and a reminder of how the impact of this pandemic can be felt," he said.