Ontario reports record number of coronavirus cases and deaths since the pandemic began

Ontario is reporting 3,519 new cases of the coronavirus on Thursday, a new single-day record in the province since the start of the pandemic. The provincial total now stands at 204,145.

Thursday’s case count surpasses the previous one-day record set on Jan. 2 with 3,363 new cases.

According to Thursday’s provincial report, 891 cases were recorded in Toronto, 568 were in Peel Region, 457 in York Region, 208 in Windsor-Essex County, 175 in Waterloo Region, 174 in Durham Region, and 164 in Ottawa.

All other public health units in Ontario reported under 150 new cases in the provincial report.

The death toll in the province has risen to 4,856 as 89 more deaths were reported — the largest increase in a day ever recorded by the province. The last largest increase in deaths was in the first wave on April 30 with 86 deaths.

Ontario reported the highest number of hospitalizations since the pandemic began with 1,472 people hospitalized with COVID-19 (up by nine from the previous day), with 363 patients in an intensive care unit (up by two) and 242 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (down by four).

The government said 65,772 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. There is currently a backlog of 66,970 tests awaiting results. A total of 8,294,922 tests have been completed since the start of the pandemic.

Test positivity — the percentage of tests that come back positive — for Thursday was 6.1 per cent, down from Wednesday’s percentage of 8.5 and up from one week ago at 5.7 per cent.

As of 8 p.m. the previous day, the province has administered 72,630 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, Health Minister Christine Elliott said in a tweet.

Meanwhile, 172,571 Ontarians have recovered from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, which is 84 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 2,776 from the previous day.

Active cases in Ontario now stand at 26,718 — an all-time high, up from the previous day at 26,064, and up from last Thursday at 21,617.

The seven-day average has now reached 3,141, also an all-time high, up from yesterday at 3,114 and up from last week at 2,436.

Here is a breakdown of the total cases in Ontario by gender and age:

• 99,732 people are male — an increase of 1,710 cases.
• 103,162 people are female — an increase of 1,784 cases.
• 26,452 people are 19 and under — an increase of 448 cases.
• 74,380 people are 20 to 39 — an increase of 1,289 cases.
• 58,963 people are 40 to 59 — an increase of 1,051 cases.
• 29,529 people are 60 to 79 — an increase of 514 cases.
• 14,768 people are 80 and over — an increase of 208 cases.
• The province notes that not all cases have a reported age or gender.

The province notes that the number of cases publicly reported each day may not align with case counts reported by the local public health unit on a given day. Local public health units report when they were first notified of a case, which can be updated and changed as information becomes available. Data may also be pulled at different times.

Ontario long-term care homes

According to the Ministry of Long-Term Care, there have been 2,909 deaths reported among residents and patients in long-term care homes across Ontario which is an increase of 32 deaths. Ten virus-related deaths in total have been reported among staff.

There are 218 current outbreaks in homes, a decrease of two from the previous day.

The ministry also indicated there are currently 1,258 active cases among long-term care residents and 1,230 active cases among staff — up by 78 cases and up by 68 cases, respectively, in the last day.