Ontario reports 4,401 COVID-19 cases, another record of ICU patients

Ontario is reporting 4,401 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, bringing the provincial total to 391,009.

Monday’s case count is the second highest single-day increase to date, only slightly lower than Sunday’s which saw a record breaking 4,456 new cases.

According to Monday’s provincial report, 1,282 cases were recorded in Toronto, 772 in Peel Region, 564 in York Region, 339 in Ottawa, 224 in Durham Region and 177 in Halton Region

All other local public health units reported fewer than 175 new cases in the provincial report.

The death toll in the province has risen to 7,567 as 15 more deaths were recorded.

Meanwhile, 348,684 Ontario residents were reported to have recovered from COVID-19, which is about 89 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 2,445 from the previous day.

Ontario reported 1,646 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 (up by 133 from the previous day) with an all-time high of 619 patients in intensive care units (up by 14) and 408 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (up by 26).

Active cases in Ontario now stand at 34,758 — up from the previous day when it was at 32,817, and up from April 5 when it was at 25,487. At the peak of the second wave coronavirus surge in January, active cases hit just above 30,000.

The seven-day average has now reached 3,782, up from yesterday at 3,573, and is up from last week at 2,758. A month ago, the seven-day average was around 1,300.

The government said 47,929 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. There is currently a backlog of 24,796 tests awaiting results. A total of 13,196,288 tests have been completed since the start of the pandemic.

Test positivity for Monday was 9.5 per cent, the highest rate since the second wave in January. That figure is up from Sunday’s at 7.7 per cent, and is up from last week when it was 7.8 per cent.

As of 8 p.m. on Sunday, the provincial government reported administering 3,214,465 total COVID-19 vaccine doses. That marks an increase of 74,722 vaccines in the last day. There are 333,419 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 16,540 variant cases, which is up by 2,153 since the previous day, 81 B.1.351 variant cases which is up by three, and 140 P.1 variant cases which is up by six.

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

• 193,719 people are male — an increase of 2,162 cases.
• 195,032 people are female — an increase of 2,036 cases.
• 58,096 people are 19 and under — an increase of 799 cases.
• 143,532 people are 20 to 39 — an increase of 1,599 cases.
• 112,372 people are 40 to 59 — an increase of 1,229 cases.
• 54,696 people are 60 to 79 — an increase of 542  cases.
• 22,222 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: 36
• Deaths reported in ages 40 to 59: 329
• Deaths reported in ages 60 to 79: 2,166
• Deaths reported in ages 80 and older: 5,033
• 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 41 current outbreaks in homes, which is unchanged from the previous day.

The ministry also indicated there are currently 24 active cases among long-term care residents and 120 active cases among staff — up by one and up by three, respectively, in the last day.