Ontario is reporting 3,215 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, bringing the provincial total to 370,817.
Wednesday’s case count is higher than Tuesday’s which saw 3,065 new infections. On Monday, 2,938 new cases were recorded and 3,041 on Sunday. It is also the largest daily increase since mid-January.
According to Wednesday’s provincial report, 1,095 cases were recorded in Toronto, 596 in Peel Region, 342 in York Region, 225 in Ottawa, 187 in Durham Region, 113 in Middlesex-London and 104 in Hamilton.
All other local public health units reported fewer than 100 new cases in the provincial report.
The death toll in the province has risen to 7,475 as 17 more deaths were recorded.
Meanwhile, 335,983 Ontario residents were reported to have recovered from COVID-19, which is about 91 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 2,407 from the previous day.
Active cases in Ontario now stand at 27,359 — up from the previous day when it was at 26,568, and up from March 31 when it was at 20,155. At the peak of the coronavirus surge in January, active cases hit above 30,000.
The seven-day average has now reached 2,988, up from yesterday at 2,862, and is up from last week at 2,316. A month ago, the seven-day average was around 1,100.
The government said 49,889 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. There is currently a backlog of 41,624 tests awaiting results. A total of 12,905,286 tests have been completed since the start of the pandemic.
Test positivity for Wednesday was 6.7 per cent. That figure is down from Tuesday’s at 8.9 per cent, but is up from last week when it was 4.8 per cent.
Ontario reported 1,397 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 (up by 236 from the previous day) with 504 in intensive care units (down by six) and 311 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (up by one).
As of 8 p.m. on Tuesday, the provincial government reported administering 2,726,221 total COVID-19 vaccine doses. That marks an increase of 104,382 vaccines in the last day, a single-day high as the province has never administered more than 100,000 vaccines in 24 hours. There are 324,148 people fully vaccinated with two doses.
“We’re getting needles into arms as quickly and safely as possible and we continue to ramp up capacity. Vaccines remain our best defense in the fight against COVID-19. Please sign up when it’s your turn,” Health Minister Christine Elliott tweeted Wednesday.
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. J & J vaccines have not yet arrived in Canada.
Variants of concern in Ontario
Officials have listed breakdown data for the new VOCs (variants of concern) detected so far in the province 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.
The B.1.1.7 VOC is currently the dominating known strain at 2,291 variant cases, which is up by 126 since the previous day, 72 B.1.351 variant cases which is up by one, and 120 P.1 variant cases which is up by 14.
The total case count for a mutation that was detected but the lineage was not determined was 28,912, an increase of 1,719 cases in the last day.
Here is a breakdown of the total cases in Ontario by gender and age:
- 183,518 people are male — an increase of 1,589 cases.
- 185,134 people are female — an increase of 1,606 cases.
- 54,329 people are 19 and under — an increase of 620 cases.
- 135,897 people are 20 to 39 — an increase of 1,188 cases.
- 106,526 people are 40 to 59 — an increase of 929 cases.
- 52,102 people are 60 to 79 — an increase of 392 cases.
- 21,873 people are 80 and over — an increase of 82 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: 34
- Deaths reported in ages 40 to 59: 318
- Deaths reported in ages 60 to 79: 2,126
- Deaths reported in ages 80 and older: 4,994
- 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 3,755 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 52 current outbreaks in homes, which is unchanged from the previous day.
The ministry also indicated there are currently 9 active cases among long-term care residents and 118 active cases among staff — up by one and down by three, 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 14,213 school-related COVID-19 cases in Ontario to date — 10,692 among students and 2,356 among staff (1,165 individuals were not identified).
This is an increase of 719 more cases in the last day following the Easter long-weekend — 571 student cases, 146 staff cases and two were not identified.
In the last 14 days, the province indicates there are 2,053 cases reported among students, 440 cases among staff and five individuals were not identified — totaling 2,498 cases.
The COVID-19 cases are currently from 1,266 out of 4,828 schools in the province which is 26 per cent of schools. All schools in Toronto, Guelph and Peel Region are closed.
There have been a total of 4,004 confirmed cases within child care centres and homes — an increase of 199 (113 new child cases and 86 staff cases). Out of 5,282 child care centres in Ontario, 408 currently have cases and 114 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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