Ontario is reporting 1,829 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, the largest single-day increase since early February, bringing the provincial total to 327,083.
Saturday’s case count is higher than Friday’s which saw 1,745 new infections. On Thursday, 1,553 cases were recorded and 1,508 on Wednesday.
It is also the highest daily increase in cases since Feb. 1 when 1,969 new cases were reported.
According to Saturday’s provincial report, 593 cases were recorded in Toronto, 287 in Peel Region, 157 in York Region, 124 in Hamilton, 101 in Ottawa and 77 in Durham.
All other local public health units reported fewer than 70 new cases in the provincial report.
The death toll in the province has risen to 7,223 as 11 more deaths were recorded.
Officials have listed breakdown data for the new VOCs (variants of concern) which consist of the B.1.1.7 (first detected in the United Kingdom), B.1.351 (first detected in South Africa), and P.1 (first detected in Brazil) mutations.
The B.1.1.7 VOC is currently the dominating known strain at 1,230 variant cases, which is up by 55 since yesterday, 47 B.1.351 variant cases which one case was removed, and 35 P.1 variant cases which is unchanged, that have been detected so far in the province.
The cumulative case count for a mutation that was detected but the lineage was not determined was 11,902, an increase of 907, the government indicated.
Meanwhile, 306,050 Ontarians were reported to have recovered from COVID-19, which is about 94 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 1,261 from the previous day.
Active cases in Ontario now stand at 13,810 — up from the previous day when it was at 13,253, and is up from March 13 when it was at 11,818. At the peak of the coronavirus surge in January, active cases hit above 30,000.
The seven-day average has now reached 1,532, up from yesterday at 1,480, and is up from last week at 1,337.
The government said 52,083 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. There is currently a backlog of 28,020 tests awaiting results. A total of 12,033,515 tests have been completed since the start of the pandemic.
Test positivity — the percentage of tests that come back positive — for Saturday was 3.6 per cent, up from Friday at 3.3 per cent, and up from last week at 2.9 per cent.
Ontario reported 765 people hospitalized with COVID-19 (up by six from the previous day) with 302 patients in intensive care units (down by seven) and 189 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (up by 13).
As of 8 p.m. on Friday, the provincial government reported administering 1,480,882 COVID-19 vaccine doses, representing an increase of 60,283 in the last day. There are 297,134 people fully vaccinated with two doses.
Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Oxford-AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson are the vaccines currently approved in Canada. The first three require two shots administered several weeks apart while the fourth requires only one.
Here is a breakdown of the total cases in Ontario by gender and age:
- 161,369 people are male — an increase of 958 cases.
- 163,897 people are female — an increase of 881 cases.
- 45,408 people are 19 and under — an increase of 375 cases.
- 119,978 people are 20 to 39 — an increase of 695 cases.
- 94,115 people are 40 to 59 — an increase of 493 cases.
- 46,611 people are 60 to 79 — an increase of 227 cases.
- 20,891 people are 80 and over — an increase of 39 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: 32
- Deaths reported in ages 40 to 59: 301
- Deaths reported in ages 60 to 79: 2,013
- Deaths reported in ages 80 and older: 4,874
- 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 3,753 deaths reported among residents and patients in long-term care homes across Ontario which did not increase since yesterday. Eleven virus-related deaths in total have been reported among staff.
There are 52 current outbreaks in homes, which is unchanged from the previous day.
The ministry also indicated there are currently 11 active cases among long-term care residents and 101 active cases among staff — unchanged and up by three, respectively, in the last day.