Ontario reported 6,098 coronavirus cases over the past two days, bringing the total number of cases in the province to 358,558.
On Friday, 3,089 cases were reported and on Saturday 3,009 were reported, marking the largest single-day case counts since Jan. 17, when 3,422 were announced.
The province didn’t provide updated COVID-19 figures on Good Friday with it being a holiday.
Thirty-nine additional virus-related deaths were also reported over the past two days, with 23 on Friday and 16 on Saturday, bringing the provincial death toll to 7,428.
A total of 327,940 COVID-19 cases are considered resolved, which is up by 3,744 over the two days and is 91.5 per cent of all confirmed cases.
Just over 59,100 additional tests were completed for Saturday’s update. Ontario has now completed a total of 12,734,913 tests and 25,049 remain under investigation.
The province indicated that the positivity rate for Friday’s report was 4.6 per cent. Saturday’s had a positivity rate of five per cent. For comparison, in last Friday and Saturday’s updates, that figure was 3.8 and 4.5 per cent, respectively.
Provincial figures show there were 1,162 reported hospitalizations on Friday and 796 on Saturday (a drop of 366), with 435 in intensive care on Friday and 451 on Saturday (an increase of 16 and marking a pandemic high), with 271 on a ventilator Friday and 261 Saturday (a decrease of 10).
However, the province noted that more than 10 per cent of hospitals did not submit their daily bed census for Saturday’s report — as is often the case on weekends — possibly causing the reported number of hospitalizations to be lower than it actually is.
There have been 2,042 confirmed cases of the B.1.1.7 variant, first discovered in the U.K., as well as 70 of the B.1.351 variant which was discovered in South Africa, and 102 cases of the P.1 variant, first found in Brazil.
There have been 24,459 other COVID-19 cases that have screened positive for a virus mutation.
Here is a breakdown of Ontario’s cases by age and gender:
- 177,320 people are male
- 179,146 people are female
- 51,910 people are 19 and under
- 131,311 people are 20 to 39
- 103,025 people are 40 to 59
- 50,604 people are 60 to 79
- 21,614 people are 80 and over
The province notes that not all cases have a reported age or gender.
The province also notes that the number of cases publicly reported each day may not align with case counts reported by the local public health unit on a given day. Local public health units report when they were first notified of a case, which can be updated and changed as information becomes available. Data may also be pulled at different times.
According to the Ministry of Long-Term Care, there have been 3,754 deaths among residents and patients in long-term care homes across Ontario, which is up by one. There are currently 46 outbreaks in long-term care homes, 42 of which have no resident cases.
There are seven active cases among long-term care residents and 106 among staff.
As of 8 p.m. Friday, 2,424,063 COVID-19 vaccine doses had been administered in Ontario — 88,183 more shots were administered ahead of Friday’s report and 59,567 ahead of Saturday’s.
So far, 321,469 people in the province are considered to be fully vaccinated.