Ontario reports under 1,700 new coronavirus cases, 49 more deaths

Ontario is reporting 1,670 new cases of the coronavirus on Wednesday, the third day in a row cases are below 2,000, bringing the provincial total to 260,370.

Wednesday’s case count is lower than Tuesday’s which saw 1,740 new infections. On Monday, 1,958 new cases were recorded and 2,417 on Sunday.

It is also the lowest increase in daily cases since Nov. 26 when 1,478 new cases were reported.

“Locally, there are 450 new cases in Toronto, 342 in Peel, 171 in York Region and 128 in Niagara,” Health Minister Christine Elliott said.

The death toll in the province has risen to 5,958 after 49 more deaths were reported.

Meanwhile, 232,480 Ontarians have recovered from COVID-19 which is about 89 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 2,725 from the previous day.

There were more resolved cases than new cases on Wednesday.

Active cases in Ontario now stand at 21,932 — down from the previous day when it was 23,036, and down from last Wednesday at 26,467.

The seven-day average has now reached 2,205, down from yesterday at 2,346 and down from last week at 2,850 — showing a downward trend in new cases.

Ontario reported 1,382 people hospitalized with COVID-19 (down by 84 from the previous day), with 377 patients in an intensive care unit (down by six) and 291 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (down by seven).

The government said 55,191 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. There is currently a backlog of 46,900 tests awaiting results. A total of 9,430,867 tests have been completed since the start of the pandemic.

Test positivity — the percentage of tests that come back positive — for Wednesday was 4 per cent, down from Tuesday at 5.9 per cent, and down from one week ago when it was 4.9 per cent.

As of 8 p.m. Tuesday, the province has administered 305,330 COVID-19 vaccine doses. There are 96,459 people fully vaccinated with two doses. Both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, the only two vaccines currently approved in Canada, require two shots.

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

• 127,394 people are male — an increase of 875 cases.
• 131,540 people are female — an increase of 817 cases.
• 34,029 people are 19 and under — an increase of 238 cases.
• 95,285 people are 20 to 39 — an increase of 618 cases.
• 75,086 people are 40 to 59 — an increase of 481 cases.
• 37,538 people are 60 to 79 — an increase of 238 cases.
• 18,390 people are 80 and over — an increase of 102 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: 2
• Deaths reported in ages 20 to 39: 22
• Deaths reported in ages 40 to 59: 223
• Deaths reported in ages 60 to 79: 1,606
• Deaths reported in ages 80 and older: 4,104
• 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 3,428 deaths reported among residents and patients in long-term care homes across Ontario which is an increase of 39 deaths. Eleven virus-related deaths in total have been reported among staff.

There are 238 current outbreaks in homes, which is a decrease of eight from the previous day.

The ministry also indicated there are currently 1,039 active cases among long-term care residents and 974 active cases among staff — down by 125 cases and down by 121 cases, respectively, in the last day.