Ontario reports 1,057 new COVID-19 cases, 15 deaths

Ontario is reporting 1,057 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday. The provincial total now stands at 529,510.

Saturday’s case count is lower than Friday’s case count which saw 1,273 new infections. On Thursday, 1,135 were recorded with 1,095 on Wednesday.

According to Saturday’s report, 228 cases were recorded in Toronto, 178 in Peel Region, 64 in Ottawa, 71 in Hamilton and 82 in York Region.

All other local public health units reported fewer than 60 new cases in the provincial report.

The death toll in the province has risen to 8,726 as 15 more deaths were recorded.

As of 8 p.m. on Friday, 8,839,445 million COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered. That marked an increase of 148,972 vaccines in the last day. There are more than 650,000 people fully vaccinated with two doses.

Meanwhile, 506,361 Ontario residents were reported to have recovered from COVID-19, which is about 95 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 2,057 from the previous day.

There were more resolved cases than new cases on Saturday.

Active cases in Ontario now stand at 14,423 — down from the previous day when it was at 15,438, and is down from May 22 when it was at 21,454. 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 government said 33,559 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. There is currently a backlog of 14,678 tests awaiting results. A total of 15,177,862 tests have been completed since the start of the pandemic.

Test positivity for Saturday was 3.6 per cent, up from Friday’s 3.4 which was the lowest since March 8. That figure is the same as Thursday’s 3.6 per cent, and is down from last week when it was six per cent.

Ontario reported 934 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 (down by 89 from the previous day) with 626 patients in intensive care units (down by 19) and 438 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (down by 20). 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: 124,172variant cases, which is up by 986 since the previous day,

The B.1.351 VOC: 945 variant cases which is up by 31 since the previous day.

The P.1 VOC: 2,794 variant cases which is up by 178 since the previous day.

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

• 263,543 people are male — an increase of 571 cases.
• 261,745 people are female — an increase of 547 cases.
• 84,020 people are 19 and under — an increase of 243 cases.
• 198,210 people are 20 to 39 — an increase of 436 cases.
• 151,728 people are 40 to 59 — an increase of 255 cases.
• 70,736 people are 60 to 79 — an increase of 102 cases.
• 24,719 people are 80 and over — an increase of 21 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: 501 (+2)
• Deaths reported in ages 60 to 79: 2,699 (+10)
• Deaths reported in ages 80 and older: 5,451 (+3)
• The province notes there may be a reporting delay for deaths and data corrections or updates can result in death records being removed.