Ontario reports just under 3,000 new COVID-19 cases, 44 deaths

Ontario is reporting 2,941 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday. The provincial total now stands at 479,633.

Wednesday’s case count is slightly higher than Tuesday’s which saw 2,791 new infections. It is the second day in a row that cases are below 3,000.

According to Wednesday’s report, 924 cases were recorded in Toronto, 565 in Peel Region, 254 in York Region, 171 in Durham Region, and 149 in Hamilton.

All other local public health units reported fewer than 125 new cases in the provincial report.

The death toll in the province has risen to 8,187 as 44 more deaths were recorded.

Meanwhile, 436,470 Ontario residents were reported to have recovered from COVID-19, which is about 91 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 4,361 from the previous day. There were more resolved cases than new cases on Wednesday.

Active cases in Ontario now stand at 34,976 — down from the previous day when it was at 36,440, and is down from April 28 when it was at 38,853. 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 3,432, down from yesterday at 3,509, and is down from last week at 3,888. A month ago, the seven-day average was around 2,700.

The government said 45,767 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. There is currently a backlog of 29,179 tests awaiting results. A total of 14,310,628 tests have been completed since the start of the pandemic.

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Test positivity for Tuesday was 6.6 per cent. That figure is down from Monday’s at 9.7 per cent, and is down from last week when it was 7.2 per cent.

Ontario reported 2,075 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 (down by 92  from the previous day) with 882 patients in intensive care units (down by four) and 620 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (up by 11).

As of 8 p.m. on Tuesday, a total of 5,599,723 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered. That marks an increase of 132,603 vaccines in the last day. There are 381,123 people fully vaccinated with two doses.

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 80,511 variant cases, which is up by 2,862 since the previous day, 317 B.1.351 variant cases which is up by eight, and 1,001 P.1 variant cases which is up by 30.

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

• 238,332 people are male — an increase of 1,581 cases.
• 237,669 people are female — an increase of 1,393 cases.
• 74,316 people are 19 and under — an increase of 523 cases.
• 177,396 people are 20 to 39 — an increase of 1,194 cases.
• 138,449 people are 40 to 59 — an increase of 871 cases.
• 65,594 people are 60 to 79 — an increase of 307 cases.
• 23,769 people are 80 and over — an increase of 49 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: 3
• Deaths reported in ages 20 to 39: 55 (+1)
• Deaths reported in ages 40 to 59: 400 (+11)
• Deaths reported in ages 60 to 79: 2,442 (+19)
• Deaths reported in ages 80 and older: 5,286 (+13)
• 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 3,761 deaths reported among residents and patients in long-term care homes across Ontario which is up by one death. Eleven virus-related deaths in total have been reported among staff.

There are 52 current outbreaks in homes, which is up by two from the previous day.

The ministry also indicated there are currently 60 active cases among long-term care residents and 180 active cases among staff — unchanged and up by five, respectively, in the last day.