BARRIE, ONT. -- The Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit reports 226 new cases and two recent deaths over the last three days.

The health unit says a man between the ages of 65 and 79 connected to an out-of-region outbreak died Jan. 6. A woman older than 80 passed away Friday. She had been a patient at Georgian Bay General Hospital and is the seventh death associated with an outbreak declared at the Midland facility in early December.

Seventy-three people with the virus have died in Simcoe Muskoka since the pandemic began, and the region has seen a total of 4,309 infections.

There are 1,271 active cases. Thirty-five people with the virus are in hospitals across the region, including five in intensive care at the Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre.

On Friday, the SMDHU reported a pandemic high weekly total of 510 infections.

An outbreak at Roberta Place Long Term Care has ballooned to 27 infections among the Barrie facility's residents.

Waypoint Mental Health Hospital's Awenda program is in outbreak after a patient tested positive. The hospital says the patient of the program that offers supports to men with serious mental illness or dual diagnoses is not a recent admission.

There are additional infections connected to an outbreak at RVH.

Eight patients and five staff members associated with the Integrated Stroke and Rehabilitation Unit have been sickened. While the outbreak was declared on Jan. 9, the first positive case dates back to Dec. 29.

"This is the time to very vigilant," says RVH President and CEO Janice Skot.

"The vaccination program, while it is rolling out, for the general population, it won't be taking place in the next month or two. So we need to make sure that everyone is really focusing on all those measures we were practicing since last March."

By Monday morning, 8,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine have gone into the arms of staff of local long term care homes, retirement residences, and acute care hospitals.