Ontario reports 1,273 new COVID-19 cases, 14 deaths

Ontario is reporting 1,273 new COVID-19 cases on Friday. The provincial total now stands at 528,453.

Friday’s case count is higher than Thursday’s case count which saw 1,135 new infections. On Wednesday, 1,095 were recorded with 1,039 new cases on Tuesday and 1,446 on Monday.

According to Friday’s report, 269 cases were recorded in Toronto, 268 in Peel Region, 72 in Durham Region, 78 in Hamilton and 56 in York Region.

All other local public health units reported fewer than 55 new cases in the provincial report.

The death toll in the province has risen to 8,711 as 14 more deaths were recorded.

As of 8 p.m. on Thursday, more than 8.6 million COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered. That marked an increase of over 160,000 vaccines in the last day. There are more than 600,000 people fully vaccinated with two doses.

Meanwhile, 504,304 Ontario residents were reported to have recovered from COVID-19, which is about 95 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 2,362 from the previous day.

There were more resolved cases than new cases on Friday.

Active cases in Ontario now stand at 15,438 — down from the previous day when it was at 16,541, and is down from May 21 when it was at 22,200. At the peak of the second wave coronavirus surge in January, active cases hit just above 30,000. In the third wave in April, active cases topped 43,000.

The seven-day average has now reached 1,353, which is down from yesterday at 1,441, and is down from last week at 2,064. A month ago, the seven-day average was around 3,900.

The government said 40,900 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. There is currently a backlog of 16,002 tests awaiting results. A total of 15,144,303 tests have been completed since the start of the pandemic.

Test positivity for Friday was 3.4 per cent, down further from Thursday’s 3.6 per cent which was the lowest since March. That figure is also down from Wednesday’s 5.3 per cent, and is down from last week when it was 5.4 per cent.

Ontario reported 1,023 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 (down by 49 from the previous day) with 645 patients in intensive care units (down by five) and 458 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (up by six). Overall, hospitalizations have been on the decline since the third wave peak in April.

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 and is currently the dominating known strain), B.1.351 (first detected in South Africa), P.1 (first detected in Brazil).

The B.1.1.7 VOC: 123,186 variant cases, which is up by 837 since the previous day,

The B.1.351 VOC: 914 variant cases which is up by 74 since the previous day.

The P.1 VOC: 2,616 variant cases which is up by 72 since the previous day.

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

• 262,972 people are male — an increase of 660 cases.
• 261,198 people are female — an increase of 612 cases.
• 83,777 people are 19 and under — an increase of 249 cases.
• 197,774 people are 20 to 39 — an increase of 544 cases.
• 151,473 people are 40 to 59 — an increase of 325 cases.
• 70,634 people are 60 to 79 — an increase of 128 cases.
• 24,698 people are 80 and over — an increase of 26 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: 4
• Deaths reported in ages 20 to 39: 70
• Deaths reported in ages 40 to 59: 499 (+3)
• Deaths reported in ages 60 to 79: 2,689 (+13)
• Deaths reported in ages 80 and older: 5,448 (+9)
• The province notes there may be a reporting delay for deaths and data corrections or updates can result in death records being removed.