Ontario has reduced restrictions on social gatherings as the province reports 315 new COVID-19 cases

The current limit for social gatherings is 50 people at home and 100 people outside.

Regional health officials said the reason was that people did not follow public health guidelines at community meetings.

Toronto, Peel and Ottawa – Ford has promised to take action in areas where most cases have surfaced.

He could not rule out further lockdowns in those areas if the virus case numbers were not controlled.

Another 315 new COVID-19 cases were reported in Ontario on Wednesday – more than half of them under the age of 40.

In a series of tweets, Health Minister Christine Elliott said Wednesday that 64 percent of cases are in that age range.

Of the 34 health departments in the province, 25 report five or fewer cases, and 12 areas have no new cases.

The majority of cases are now concentrated in five different health departments. Toronto, Ottawa and Peel are recording daily cases with 77, 61, and 54 cases, respectively. The York area also reported 37 cases today, compared to 24 in Durham.

Cases have been on the rise since August 12, with 200 numbers per day since September 12. Wednesday’s update brings the province a total of 45,383 virus cases since the outbreak began in late January.

An additional two deaths were reported in Ontario, bringing the official number to 2,822. Less than a third of all deaths are in people aged 80 and over. The death toll was 2,862, according to figures collected by CBC News from the province’s local health departments.

Hospitalization numbers were similar to Tuesday with 44 patients currently hospitalized for the novel coronavirus. Of those, 20 patients were being treated in intensive care and 12 on ventilator. In all, there are currently 2,316 active, COVID-19 cases confirmed in this province.

Nearly 29,000 tests for the virus were processed Tuesday in Ontario’s lab network.