Ontario reports more than 1,000 new coronavirus cases, 44 more deaths

Ontario is reporting 1,038 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, bringing the provincial total to 289,621.

Thursday’s case count is higher than Wednesday’s which saw 847 new infections. On Tuesday, 904 new cases were recorded and 964 on Monday.

It also brings the daily case count above 1,000 for the first time in five days, although it was also the day with the most tests completed.

According to Thursday’s provincial report, 376 cases were recorded in Toronto, 142 in Peel Region and 122 in York Region.

All other local public health units reported fewer than 50 new cases in the provincial report.

Officials have included a section for confirmed variant cases and have listed 348 U.K. variant cases (B.1.1.7), 10 South African variant cases (B.1.351), and one Brazilian variant case (P.1) detected so far in the province.

The death toll in the province has risen to 6,773 as 44 more deaths were reported.

Meanwhile, 272,146 Ontarians were reported to have recovered from COVID-19, which is 94 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 1,277 from the previous day.

There were more resolved cases on Thursday than new cases.

Active cases in Ontario now stand at 10,702 — down from the previous day when it was 10,985, and down from last Thursday at 12,853. At the peak of the coronavirus surge in January, active cases hit above 30,000.

The seven-day average has now reached 1,016, slightly up from yesterday at 1,002, but down from last week at 1,264 — showing a downward trend in new cases.

The government said 56,165 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. There is currently a backlog of 44,532 tests awaiting results. A total of 10,523,414 tests have been completed since the start of the pandemic.

Test positivity — the percentage of tests that come back positive — for Thursday was 2.2 per cent, down from Wednesday when it was three per cent, and down from a week ago at 2.3 per cent.

Ontario reported 758 people hospitalized with COVID-19 (up by 39 from the previous day) with 277 patients in intensive care units (down by 21) and 192 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (down by 19).

As of 8 p.m. on Wednesday, the province has administered 501,867 COVID-19 vaccine doses, representing an increase of 12,383 in the last day. There are 205,802 people fully vaccinated with two doses. Both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, the only vaccines currently approved in Canada, require two shots.

“Ontario is ready to administer even more COVID-19 vaccines and expand the number of vaccination sites as soon as we receive more doses from the federal government,” Health Minister Christine Elliott tweeted. “We have capacity to vaccinate nearly 40,000 people per day and can triple or quadruple that capacity with notice.”

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

• 142,126 people are male — an increase of 541 cases.
• 145,974 people are female — an increase of 488 cases.
• 38,156 people are 19 and under — an increase of 196 cases.
• 105,938 people are 20 to 39 — an increase of 413 cases.
• 83,747 people are 40 to 59 — an increase of 266 cases.
• 41,822 people are 60 to 79 — an increase of 128 cases.
• 19,896 people are 80 and over — an increase of 32 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: 29
• Deaths reported in ages 40 to 59: 271
• Deaths reported in ages 60 to 79: 1,846
• Deaths reported in ages 80 and older: 4,624
• The province notes there may be a reporting delay for deaths and data corrections or updates can result in death records being removed.

Cases, deaths and outbreaks in Ontario long-term care homes

According to the Ministry of Long-Term Care, there have been 3,730 deaths reported among residents and patients in long-term care homes across Ontario which is an increase of two deaths. Eleven virus-related deaths in total have been reported among staff.

There are 142 current outbreaks in homes, which is a decrease of 13 from the previous day.

The ministry also indicated there are currently 191 active cases among long-term care residents and 323 active cases among staff — down by 19 cases and down by 10 cases, respectively, in the last day.