TORONTO Public health officials in Ontario are taking further measures to trace a more contagious strain of COVID-19 that s been found in a number of regions since it was first detected in the Toronto area a month ago.
As of Monday, 38 cases of the new variant, which was first reported in the U.K. late last year, had been confirmed in the province.
The new variant is deemed to have caused a deadly outbreak at a long-term care home in Barrie, Ont., that has infected more than 200 people. The local public health unit was investigating whether it was a factor in another regional care home outbreak.
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TORONTO Ontario public health units announced plans to beef up COVID-19 infection control measures Monday with news that a contagious COVID-19 variant reported in the United Kingdom had emerged across the province.
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The United Kingdom variant has been deemed the cause of a deadly outbreak at a Barrie, Ont., long-term care home, and the local public health unit is currently investigating whether it played a role in another ongoing outbreak.
Now nearly a month after the first cases of the new strain were confirmed in Canada – in Ontario’s Durham Region – public health units in Toronto and the Kingston, Ont., have also reported confirmed cases of the variant.