Ontario reports 1,670 new coronavirus cases, province notes an overestimation due to data migration

Ontario is reporting 1,670 new cases of the coronavirus on Friday, bringing the provincial total to 275,330.

The province notes Friday’s case count is an overestimation due to a data system migration that began on Monday and has resulted in the fluctuation of daily case numbers all week.

“Toronto Public Health is reporting 125 additional cases today that were not fully migrated during the CCM transition, resulting in a slight overestimation of today’s overall case numbers,” a government spokesperson said Friday.

On Thursday, 1,563 new infections were recorded, 1,172 on Wednesday, 754 on Tuesday and 1,969 on Monday.

“Locally, there are 667 new cases in Toronto, 317 in Peel, 125 in York Region and 100 in Halton,” Health Minister Christine Elliott said in a tweet on Friday.

The death toll in the province has risen to 6,438 as 45 more deaths were reported.

Officials have included a section for confirmed variant cases and have listed 155 U.K. variant (B.1.1.7) cases and one South African variant (B.1.351) detected so far in the province.

Meanwhile, 253,170 Ontarians were reported to have recovered from COVID-19, which is 92 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 2,233 from the previous day.

There were more resolved cases than new cases on Friday.

Active cases in Ontario now stand at 15,722 — down from the previous day when it was 16,330, and down from last Friday at 20,357.

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The seven-day average has now reached 1,576, down from yesterday at 1,600, and down from last week at 2,011 — showing a downward trend in new cases.

Ontario reported 1,043 people hospitalized with COVID-19 (down by 58 from the previous day), with 325 patients in an intensive care unit (up by two) and 225 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (down by 16).

The government said 62,710 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. There is currently a backlog of 41,561 tests awaiting results. A total of 9,912,023 tests have been completed since the start of the pandemic.

Test positivity — the percentage of tests that come back positive — for Friday was 2.5 per cent, down from Thursday when it was 2.6 per cent, and down from a week ago at 3.3 per cent. Friday’s test positivity is also the lowest it’s been in a few months.

As of 8 p.m. Thursday, the province has administered 362,749 COVID-19 vaccine doses, an increase of 7,694 in the last day. There are 87,831 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:

• 134,724 people are male — an increase of 772 cases.
• 139,028 people are female — an increase of 787 cases.
• 35,981 people are 19 and under — an increase of 198 cases.
• 100,640 people are 20 to 39 — an increase of 534 cases.
• 79,605 people are 40 to 59 — an increase of 478 cases.
• 39,775 people are 60 to 79 — an increase of 241 cases.
• 19,276 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: 24
• Deaths reported in ages 40 to 59: 244
• Deaths reported in ages 60 to 79: 1,734
• Deaths reported in ages 80 and older: 4,424
• The province notes there may be a reporting delay for deaths and data corrections or updates can result in death records being removed.

Ontario long-term care homes

According to the Ministry of Long-Term Care, there have been 3,640 deaths reported among residents and patients in long-term care homes across Ontario which is an increase of 13 deaths. Eleven virus-related deaths in total have been reported among staff.

There are 208 current outbreaks in homes, which is an increase of two from the previous day.

The ministry also indicated there are currently 591 active cases among long-term care residents and 730 active cases among staff — down by 110 cases and down by 28 cases, respectively, in the last day.