Ontario reports more than 4,200 COVID-19 cases, second highest case count on record

Ontario is reporting 4,227 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, the second highest case count ever recorded, bringing the provincial total to 378,339.

The previous record of cases in a single day was on Jan. 8 amid the second wave at 4,249, although that day had a few hundred previously unreported cases. It is also the first time since January that cases are over 4,000.

According to Friday’s provincial report, 1,218 cases were recorded in Toronto, 762 in Peel Region, 532 in York Region, 247 in Durham Region, 246 in Ottawa, 174 in Halton Region and 159 in Middlesex-London.

All other local public health units reported fewer than 150 new cases in the provincial report.

The death toll in the province has risen to 7,512 as 18 more deaths were recorded.

Meanwhile, 341,200 Ontario residents were reported to have recovered from COVID-19, which is about 90 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 2,641 from the previous day.

Active cases in Ontario now stand at 29,627 — up from the previous day when it was at 28,059, and up from April 2 when it was at 22,016. At the peak of the coronavirus surge in January, active cases hit above 30,000.

The seven-day average has now reached 3,256, up from yesterday at 3,093 , and is up from last week at 2,473. A month ago, the seven-day average was around 1,200.

The government said 61,410 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. There is currently a backlog of 42,572 tests awaiting results. A total of 13,030,542 tests have been completed since the start of the pandemic.

Test positivity for Friday was 6.3 per cent. That figure is up from Thursday’s at 6 per cent, and is up from last week when it was 4.6 per cent.

Ontario reported 1,492 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 (up by 75 from the previous day) with 552 in intensive care units (up by 27) and 359 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (up by 28).

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Patients with COVID-19 in ICUs have hit the highest level seen so far in the pandemic.

As of 8 p.m. on Thursday, the provincial government reported administering 2,940,166 total COVID-19 vaccine doses. That marks an increase of 105,382 vaccines in the last day. The province administered more than 100,000 vaccines in 24 hours three days in a row. There are 328,598 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. 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 11,492 variant cases, which is up by 1,860 since the previous day, 76 B.1.351 variant cases which is up by one, and 133 P.1 variant cases which is up by two.

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

• 187,385 people are male — an increase of 2,162 cases.
• 188,759 people are female — an increase of 2,036 cases.
• 55,730 people are 19 and under — an increase of 799 cases.
• 138,776 people are 20 to 39 — an increase of 1,599 cases.
• 108,708 people are 40 to 59 — an increase of 1,229 cases.
• 53,043 people are 60 to 79 — an increase of 542  cases.
• 21,998 people are 80 and over — an increase of 57 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: 323
• Deaths reported in ages 60 to 79: 2,147
• Deaths reported in ages 80 and older: 5,005
• 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 46 current outbreaks in homes, which is down by three from the previous day.

The ministry also indicated there are currently 15 active cases among long-term care residents and 118active cases among staff — up by five and down by one, 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 14,686 school-related COVID-19 cases in Ontario to date — 11,077 among students and 2,447 among staff (1,162 individuals were not identified).

This is an increase of 199 more cases in the last day — 160 student cases, 36 staff cases, three were not identified.

In the last 14 days, the province indicates there are 2,152 cases reported among students, 459 cases among staff and seven individuals were not identified — totaling 2,618 cases.

The COVID-19 cases are currently from 1,300 out of 4,828 schools in the province which is 27 per cent of schools. All schools in Toronto, Guelph and Peel Region are closed. Schools are heading into April Break after Friday.

There have been a total of 4,222 confirmed cases within child care centres and homes — an increase of 67 (39 new child cases and 28 staff cases). Out of 5,282 child care centres in Ontario, 420 currently have cases and 127 centres are closed.

Data for cases in schools and child care centres are updated weekdays only, at 10:30 a.m. On Friday’s, numbers are included from Wednesday afternoon to Thursday afternoon.