Ontario reports 2,961 new coronavirus cases, 74 more deaths

Ontario is reporting 2,961 new cases of the coronavirus on Wednesday, bringing the provincial total to 224,984.

Wednesday’s case count is slightly higher than Tuesday’s which saw 2,903 new infections along with eight more U.K. coronavirus variant cases. On Monday, 3,338 new cases were recorded.

According to Wednesday’s provincial report, 738 cases were recorded in Toronto, 536 were in Peel Region, 245 in Windsor-Essex County, 219 in York Region, 171 in Hamilton and 154 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 5,127, after 74 more deaths were reported.

Deaths related to the virus in Ontario’s long-term care homes have now surpassed 3,000 in total so far since the start of the pandemic.

Ontario reported 1,674 people hospitalized with COVID-19 (down by 27 from the previous day), with 385 patients in an intensive care unit (unchanged) and 276 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (up by 14).

The government said 50,931 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. There is currently a backlog of 61,259 tests awaiting results. A total of 8,643,747 tests have been completed since the start of the pandemic.

Test positivity — the percentage of tests that come back positive — for Wednesday was six per cent, down from Tuesday’s percentage of 7.8 and down from one week ago at 8.5 per cent.

As of 8 p.m. Tuesday, the province has administered 144,784 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, 8,778 people have been fully vaccinated with two doses.

Meanwhile, 190,221 Ontarians have recovered from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, which is 84 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 3,392 from the previous day.

There were more resolved cases on Wednesday than new cases.

Active cases in Ontario now stand at 29,636 — down from the previous day at 30,141, but up from last Wednesday at 26,064.

The seven-day average has now reached 3,480, down from yesterday at 3,523 but up from last week at 3,114.

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

• 109,824 people are male — an increase of 1,441 cases.
• 113,790 people are female — an increase of 1,505 cases.
• 29,426 people are 19 and under — an increase of 408 cases.
• 82,113 people are 20 to 39 — an increase of 1,140 cases.
• 64,764 people are 40 to 59 — an increase of 785 cases.
• 32,456 people are 60 to 79 — an increase of 412 cases.
• 16,176 people are 80 and over — an increase of 215 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.

Here is a breakdown of the total deaths related to COVID-19 by age:

• Deaths reported in ages 19 and under: 1
• Deaths reported in ages 20 to 39: 20
• Deaths reported in ages 40 to 59: 199
• Deaths reported in ages 60 to 79: 1,369
• Deaths reported in ages 80 and older: 3,537
• The province notes there may be a reporting delay for deaths.

Ontario long-term care homes

According to the Ministry of Long-Term Care, there have been 3,029 deaths reported among residents and patients in long-term care homes across Ontario which is an increase of 34 deaths. Ten virus-related deaths in total have been reported among staff.

There are 249 current outbreaks in homes, which is unchanged from the previous day.

The ministry also indicated there are currently 1,542 active cases among long-term care residents and 1,278 active cases among staff — down by 11 cases and up by 34 cases, respectively, in the last day.