Ontario reports more than 1,500 new coronavirus cases, 88 more deaths

Ontario is reporting 1,563 new cases of the coronavirus on Thursday, bringing the provincial total to 273,660.

Thursday’s case count is much higher than Wednesday’s which saw 1,172 new infections. On Tuesday, 754 new cases were recorded, but officials said the low number was an underestimation due to the data system migration. On Monday, 1,969 new cases were recorded and 1,848 on Sunday.

The higher daily case total comes amid the provincial government and Toronto Public Health’s migration and reconciling of data, which has been impacting daily counts for several days as noted in the fluctuation of daily numbers this week.

“Locally, there are 584 new cases in Toronto, 265 in Peel and 132 in York Region,” Health Minister Christine Elliott said in a tweet on Thursday.

The death toll in the province has risen to 6,393 as 88 more deaths were reported.

Officials have included a section for confirmed variant cases and have listed 152 U.K. variant (B.1.1.7) cases and one South African variant (B.1.351) detected so far in the province.

Meanwhile, 250,937 Ontarians were reported to have recovered from COVID-19, which is about 90 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 1,956 from the previous day.

There were more resolved cases than new cases on Thursday.

Active cases in Ontario now stand at 16,811 — down from the previous day when it was 17,451, and down from last Thursday at 21,932.

The seven-day average has now reached 1,600, down from yesterday at 1,675, and down from last week at 2,128 — showing a downward trend in new cases.

Ontario reported 1,101 people hospitalized with COVID-19 (up by 35 from the previous day), with 323 patients in an intensive care unit (down by 13) and 254 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (down by 13).

The government said 64,467 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. There is currently a backlog of 47,282 tests awaiting results. A total of 9,849,313 tests have been completed since the start of the pandemic.

Test positivity — the percentage of tests that come back positive — for Thursday was 2.6 per cent, down from Wednesday when it was 3.3 per cent, and down from a week ago also at 3.3 per cent.

The test positivity reached the lowest it has been in a few months, since Oct. 22 when it was 2.5 per cent.

As of 8 p.m. Wednesday, the province has administered 355,055 COVID-19 vaccine doses, an increase of 6,724 in the last day. There are 80,977 people fully vaccinated with two doses. Both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, the only vaccines currently approved in Canada, require two shots.

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

• 133,928 people are male — an increase of 772 cases.
• 138,150 people are female — an increase of 787 cases.
• 35,819 people are 19 and under — an increase of 198 cases.
• 99,977  people are 20 to 39 — an increase of 534 cases.
• 79,093 people are 40 to 59 — an increase of 478 cases.
• 39,516 people are 60 to 79 — an increase of 241 cases.
• 19,201 people are 80 and over — an increase of 108 cases.
• The province notes that not all cases have a reported age or gender.

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: 25
• Deaths reported in ages 40 to 59: 240
• Deaths reported in ages 60 to 79: 1,734
• Deaths reported in ages 80 and older: 4,391
• 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 3,627 deaths reported among residents and patients in long-term care homes across Ontario which is an increase of 26 deaths. Eleven virus-related deaths in total have been reported among staff.

There are 206 current outbreaks in homes, which is a decrease of 10 from the previous day.

The ministry also indicated there are currently 701 active cases among long-term care residents and 758 active cases among staff — down by 62 cases and down by 43 cases, respectively, in the last day.