Ontario is reporting 4,736 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, a single-day high since the pandemic began. The provincial total now stands at 403,571, surpassing the 400,000 mark.
The record-breaking case count comes amid a surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations and patients in ICU in the province’s third wave. In the past seven days, five of those saw daily case numbers above 4,000. The most recent 100,000 new cases came from the last six weeks.
According to Thursday’s report, 1,188 cases were recorded in Toronto, 983 in Peel Region, 526 in York Region, 342 in Ottawa, 216 in Durham Region, and 215 in Niagara Region.
All other local public health units reported fewer than 200 new cases in the provincial report.
The death toll in the province has risen to 7,639 as 29 more deaths were recorded — the largest increase in deaths since mid-February and a third wave high.
Meanwhile, 357,591 Ontario residents were reported to have recovered from COVID-19, which is about 89 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 3,174 from the previous day.
Ontario reported 1,932 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 (up by 55 from the previous day) with an all-time high of 659 patients in intensive care units (up by 17) and 442 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (unchanged).
Active cases in Ontario now stand at 38,341 — up from the previous day when it was at 36,808, and up from April 8 when it was at 28,059. 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 4,208, up from yesterday at 4,003, and is up from last week at 3,093. A month ago, the seven-day average was around 1,300.
The government said 65,559 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. There is currently a backlog of 39,682 tests awaiting results. A total of 13,358,225 tests have been completed since the start of the pandemic.
Test positivity for Thursday was eight per cent. That figure is down from Wednesday’s at 8.6 per cent, but is up from last week when it was six per cent.
As of 8 p.m. on Wednesday, a total of 3,528,404 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered. That marks an increase of 105,430 vaccines in the last day. There are 339,491 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 27,278 variant cases, which is up by 2,811 since the previous day, 95 B.1.351 variant cases which is up by 11, and 191 P.1 variant cases which is up by 15.
Here is a breakdown of the total cases in Ontario by gender and age:
- 200,130 people are male — an increase of 2,380 cases.
- 201,140 people are female — an increase of 2,356 cases.
- 60,466 people are 19 and under — an increase of 894 cases.
- 148,085 people are 20 to 39 — an increase of 1,719 cases.
- 116,126 people are 40 to 59 — an increase of 1,408 cases.
- 56,340 people are 60 to 79 — an increase of 625 cases.
- 22,464 people are 80 and over — an increase of 94 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: 39
- Deaths reported in ages 40 to 59: 332
- Deaths reported in ages 60 to 79: 2,200
- Deaths reported in ages 80 and older: 5,065
- 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 40 current outbreaks in homes, which is down by one from the previous day.
The ministry also indicated there are currently 22 active cases among long-term care residents and 121 active cases among staff — up by three and down by 10, respectively, in the last day.
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