Waterloo region's total variant cases top 500 over long weekend

Region of Waterloo Public Health reported a total of 520 variant cases on Sunday as the province entered its third shutdown since the pandemic started.

That's an increase of 21 cases from the day before. Thirty of those cases have been confirmed to be the B117 variant first detected in the UK.

The region reported 58 new COVID-19 infections on Friday, 56 on Saturday and 41 cases on Sunday, 11 of which were added from previous days. There are 341 active cases in the region, a drop from Saturday's 356 total.

There have been no new COVID-related deaths reported over the long weekend.

There are 21 people hospitalized with the virus, with six of them in the intensive care unit.

Ontario entered an emergency brake shutdown on Saturday at 12:01 a.m. This prohibits indoor and outdoor dining and personal care services. This also means limited capacity in other retail settings, weddings, funerals and religious services.

11 outbreaks

There are 11 outbreaks in Waterloo region.

The University of Waterloo continues to grapple with a growing outbreak now linked to 34 infections as of Sunday.

Last week, public health declared an outbreak at all on-campus residences. These include variants of concern. The region said some cases are linked to off-campus gatherings where students from universities in Waterloo attended.

Wilfrid Laurier University was no longer listed on the region's dashboard, however, the school reported on its website that there have been 11 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at its Waterloo campus in the past two weeks.

There are two outbreaks at Holy Rosary Catholic Elementary School with two cases each and one outbreak at St. John Catholic Elementary School with two cases.

There is one outbreak at Forest Heights long-term care with four cases in staff.

There are outbreaks at two hospitals including St. Mary's General Hospital and Cambridge Memorial Hospital.

Two construction sites in the region are facing outbreaks with three cases each. Two manufacturing workplaces are also in outbreak situations, one with five cases and another with seven.

Meanwhile employees at Cambridge Toyota are working under new "self-isolation" rules that include strict guidelines at work. This is after a third-party contractor who administered rapid tests at facilities in Cambridge (North) and Woodstock tested positive for COVID-19. Officials with Toyota said the worker was last on site March 26.

The company says it has tested 80 per cent of employees who may have had brief exposure. All of the employees tested so far have been confirmed negative.