Trudeau, Ford announce partnership with 3M as Ontario records another 131 cases of COVID-19

Premier Doug Ford urged Ontarians not to let their guard down for a second amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as he and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced 3M Canada would produce personal protective equipment, including N95 masks, at an expanded facility in Brockville, Ont.

Ford called the announcement, first reported Thursday by CBC News, one of the proudest moments of his time as premier.

Earlier in the pandemic, the province was left scrambling to acquire more PPE with just one week of supplies left.

Ford said today's announcement will stop that from happening again.

"Back in April, I made a promise...That we would never, never again be left at the mercy again of other countries for this critical PPE," said Ford.

The plant is expected to deliver 25 million masks to the federal government and another 25 million for Ontario. Production is set to begin early next year.

131 new COVID-19 cases Friday

Ontario recorded a total of 131 cases of COVID-19 on Friday, which includes the missing numbers from the previous day's data glitch.

In a series of tweets on Thursday, Health Minister Christine Elliott said Thursday's actual number of confirmed cases was likely higher than the reported 76.

The missing data, from 11 public health units across the province, hasnow been added to Friday's count.

"Because of the data gap yesterday, today's number is an overestimation of daily counts," Elliott tweeted.

The units whose COVID-19 data wasn't captured Thursday included:

• Algoma
• Brant County
• Chatham-Kent
• Hamilton
• Niagara
• Peterborough
• Simcoe Muskoka
• Southwestern
• Sudbury
• Timiskaming
• Windsor-Essex

The province has now seen a total of 41,179 confirmed cases of the virus since the outbreak first began in late January.

More than 28,000 tests were processed in the last 24 hours, the province says.

Of the 131 new cases, Ottawa, Peel, and Toronto had highest number of daily cases counts on Friday with 37, 21, and 25,respectively.

There are currently 986 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, a slight increase from yesterday's total of 964.

Of those, 35 are being treated in the hospital, including 13 patients in the ICU and seven are onventilators.It's only the fourth time the number of patients requiring a ventilator has fallen into single digits since the province began reporting that data on April 1.

Ontario's official COVID-19 death toll grew by three, sitting now at 2,796. However, aCBC News count based on data from public health units puts the actual toll at 2,831.