Ontario reports 663 new COVID-19 cases, lowest daily increase in nearly 8 months

Ontario is reporting 663 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, as case counts continue to trend downward marking the seventh day in a row it’s below 1,000. The provincial total now stands at 536,082.

Sunday’s case count is also the lowest daily increase in nearly 8 months when 658 new cases were reported on Oct. 18.

On Saturday, 744 new cases were recorded, 914 on Friday and 870 on Thursday.

According to Sunday’s report, 115 cases were recorded in Toronto, 112 in Peel Region, 59 in Niagara, 47 in York Region and 40 in Ottawa.

All other local public health units reported fewer than 40 new cases in the provincial report.

The death toll in the province has risen to 8,854 as 10 more deaths were recorded.

As of 8 p.m. on Saturday, nearly 10 million total COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered. That marked an increase of 158,393 vaccines (90,130 for a first shot and 68,263 for a second shot) in the last day. There are now more than 1 million people fully vaccinated with two doses.

Meanwhile, 518,860 Ontario residents were reported to have recovered from COVID-19, which is about 97 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 1,222 from the previous day.

There were more resolved cases than new cases on Sunday.

Active cases in Ontario now stand at 8,368 — down from the previous day when it was at 8,937, and is down from May 30 when it was at 13,371. 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 791, which is down from yesterday at 844, and is down from last week at 1,154. A month ago, the seven-day average was around 3,200.

The government said 22,635 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. There is currently a backlog of 7,049 tests awaiting results. A total of 15,391,672 tests have been completed since the start of the pandemic.

Test positivity for Sunday was 2.8 per cent. That figure is down from Saturday’s at 3.1 and is down from last week when it was 4.2 per cent.

Ontario reported 545 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 (down by 80 from the previous day) with 510 patients in intensive care units (down by six) and 344 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (down by 18). 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 (now named by WHO as “Alpha” and was first detected in the United Kingdom), B.1.351 (now named by WHO as “Beta” and was first detected in South Africa), and P.1 (now named by WHO as “Gamma” and was first detected in Brazil).

“Alpha” the B.1.1.7 VOC: 131,991 variant cases, which is up by 868 since the previous day,

“Beta” the B.1.351 VOC: 1,076 variant cases which is up by 41 since the previous day.

“Gamma” the P.1 VOC: 3,740 variant cases which is up by 477 since the previous day.

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

• 266,967 people are male — an increase of 321 cases.
• 265,150 people are female — an increase of 334 cases.
• 85,573 people are 19 and under — an increase of 185 cases.
• 200,778 people are 20 to 39 — an increase of 229 cases.
• 153,389 people are 40 to 59 — an increase of 168 cases.
• 71,400 people are 60 to 79 — an increase of 69 cases.
• 24,842 people are 80 and over — an increase of 13 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: 71
• Deaths reported in ages 40 to 59: 526
• Deaths reported in ages 60 to 79: 2,753
• Deaths reported in ages 80 and older: 5,499
• 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 3,777 deaths reported among residents and patients in long-term care homes across Ontario which is an increase of one death since yesterday. Thirteen virus-related deaths in total have been reported among staff.

There are 26 current outbreaks in homes, which is unchanged from the previous day.

The ministry also indicated there are currently 40 active cases among long-term care residents 69 active cases among staff — up by one and down by eight, respectively, in the last day.