COVID-19: Death toll in Waterloo Region climbs to 348 as another death reported in the area

COVID-19-related death in Waterloo Region, raising the death toll in the area to 348.The agency does not update its dashboard on weekends but there were 20 deaths reported over that eight-day span.

Omicron infectivity period doesn’t appear shorter than other COVID variants, Public Health Ontario says The latest victim was connected to PeopleCare Hilltop Manor in Cambridge, where a COVID-19 outbreak was declared on Jan.

5, which has been connected to 59 cases involving staff members with a further 89 involving residents.The outbreak is one of 76 active in the area, with 35 involving long-term care or retirement homes, 27 connected to congregate settings and the other 12 in hospitals.As of Friday morning, the hospitals in the region said they were caring for 125 patients suffering from COVID-19 and that there were eight available intensive care unit beds among the three.The three hospitals were also short 26 surgical and medical beds as they continued to deal with the surge of patients brought on by the Omicron variant of COVID-19.Waterloo Public Health reported another 216 positive tests for the coronavirus, raising the total number of cases in the area to 37,941.This drops the rolling seven-day average number of new daily cases back down to 204.7.

On Monday that number was 286.6, however, the agency has warned that due to testing availability, case counts on its dashboard are likely lower than the actual number of cases in Waterloo Region.Another 254 people have also been cleared of the virus, pushing the number of resolved cases across the region to 35,172.This leaves the area with 1,949 active COVID-19 cases, down 51 from Monday.On the flip side of the coin, there have now been 1,221,081 COVID-19 vaccinations done in.