Ontario is reporting 2,333 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, the seventh straight day cases are above 2,000, bringing the provincial total to 349,903.
Wednesday’s case count is slightly lower than Tuesday’s which saw 2,336 new infections. On Monday, 2,094 new cases were recorded and 2,448 on Sunday.
According to Wednesday’s provincial report, 785 cases were recorded in Toronto, 433 in Peel Region, 222 in York Region, 153 in Hamilton, 124 in Ottawa, 120 in Durham Region, and 93 in Middlesex-London.
All other local public health units reported fewer than 90 new cases in the provincial report.
The death toll in the province has risen to 7,366 as 15 more deaths were recorded.
Meanwhile, 322,382 Ontario residents were reported to have recovered from COVID-19, which is about 92 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 1,973 from the previous day.
Active cases in Ontario now stand at 20,155 — up from the previous day when it was at 19,810, and up from March 24 when it was at 15,047. At the peak of the coronavirus surge in January, active cases hit above 30,000.
The seven-day average has now reached 2,316, up from yesterday at 2,207, and is up from last week at 1,676. A month ago, the seven-day average was around 1,100.
The government said 52,532 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. There is currently a backlog of 40,446 tests awaiting results. A total of 12,551,173 tests have been completed since the start of the pandemic.
Test positivity for Wednesday was 4.8 per cent. That figure is down from Tuesday when it was 6.2, but is up from last week when it was 3.8 per cent.
Ontario reported 1,111 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 (up by 21 from the previous day) with 396 in intensive care units (up by nine) and 252 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (up by three).
However, the president of the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) said the number of patients in ICU, based on Critical Care Services Ontario data, is much higher at 421 with 32 more admissions yesterday.
“This is the highest number of COVID patients in critical care at one time since the pandemic began,” Anthony Dale, OHA president, tweeted Wednesday morning.
As of 8 p.m. on Tuesday, the provincial government reported administering 2,192,253 total COVID-19 vaccine doses, representing an increase of 89,873 in the last day which is the most vaccines administered in a day. There are 315,820 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.
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), P.1 (first detected in Brazil), as well as mutations that have no determined lineage.
Of the variants detected so far in the province, the B.1.1.7 VOC is currently the dominating known strain at 1,898 variant cases, which is up by 98 since the previous day, 70 B.1.351 variant cases which is up by one, and 92 P.1 variant cases which is up by two.
The total case count for a mutation that was detected but the lineage was not determined was 21,346, an increase of 1,229 cases in the last day.
Here is a breakdown of the total cases in Ontario by gender and age:
- 173,053 people are male — an increase of 1,202 cases.
- 174,881 people are female — an increase of 1,112 cases.
- 50,127 people are 19 and under — an increase of 479 cases.
- 128,122 people are 20 to 39 — an increase of 816 cases.
- 100,605 people are 40 to 59 — an increase of 685 cases.
- 49,551 people are 60 to 79 — an increase of 309 cases.
- 21,416 people are 80 and over — an increase of 44 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: 33
- Deaths reported in ages 40 to 59: 313
- Deaths reported in ages 60 to 79: 2,081
- Deaths reported in ages 80 and older: 4,936
- 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 from yesterday. Eleven virus-related deaths in total have been reported among staff.
There are 43 current outbreaks in homes, which is a decrease of seven from the previous day.
The ministry also indicated there are currently 10 active cases among long-term care residents and 101 active cases among staff — up by one and up by 12, respectively, in the last day.
Cases among students and staff at Ontario schools, child care centres
Meanwhile, government figures show there have been a total of 13,060 school-related COVID-19 cases in Ontario to date — 9,749 among students and 2,147 among staff (1,164 individuals were not identified). This is an increase of 332 more cases in the last day — 282 student cases and 50 staff cases.
In the last 14 days, the province indicates there are 1,970 cases reported among students, 406 cases among staff and five individuals were not identified — totaling 2,381 cases.
The COVID-19 cases are currently from 1,199 out of 4,828 schools in the province which is 25 per cent of schools. Sixty-three schools in Ontario are currently closed as a result of positive cases, the government indicated.
There have been a total of 3,671 confirmed cases within child care centres and homes — an increase of 83 (54 new child cases and 29 staff cases). Out of 5,279 child care centres in Ontario, 355 currently have cases and 83 centres are closed.
Data for cases in schools and child care centres are updated weekdays only, at 10:30 a.m. On Wednesday’s, numbers are included from Monday afternoon to Tuesday afternoon.
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