SUDBURY -- A week after shattering the old record, Greater Sudbury recorded 34 new COVID cases on Monday, breaking the previous high of 32.

There have now been 151 new cases in the last week, and a total of 818 cases in the health unit's coverage area since the start of the pandemic.

 The spike in cases, and the growing concern that highly contagious COVID variants are helping drive the increase, prompted the Ontario government to put the city into the red-protect designation under provincial guidelines that reflect the state of the pandemic in each health unit across the province.

All of the cases reported Monday are in the city, Public Health Sudbury & Districts said, and the source of infection for 28 of them is unknown. The remaining six are the result of close contact with confirmed cases.

While only three cases have been confirmed to be a COVID variant, 95 others are being screened to see if they are also one of the variants, including 18 of the infections reported Monday.

Of the new cases, 15 are in people ages 20-39, 10 are in people under the age of 19, seven between ages 40-59 and two between the ages of 60-79.

For more information, visit the health unit's website.