Ontario reports 525 new COVID-19 cases, 15 new deaths

Ontario is reporting 525 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, as case counts continue to trend downward marking the eighth day in a row it’s below 1,000. The provincial total now stands at 536,607.

Monday’s case count is lower than Sunday’s 663 and marks the lowest daily case count since late September. On Saturday, 744 new cases were recorded, 914 on Friday and 870 on Thursday.

According to Monday’s report, 114 cases were recorded in Toronto, 95 in Peel Region, 51 in Waterloo and 40 in Durham Region.

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 8,869 as 15 more deaths were recorded.

As of 8 p.m. on Sunday, over 10 million total COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered. That marked an increase of 116,829 vaccines (61,544 for a first shot and 55,285 for a second shot) in the last day. There are now more than one million people fully vaccinated with two doses.

Meanwhile, 519,801 Ontario residents were reported to have recovered from COVID-19, which is about 97 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 941 from the previous day.

There were more resolved cases than new cases on Monday.

Active cases in Ontario now stand at 7,937 — down from the previous day when it was at 8,368, and is down from May 31 when it was at 12,567. 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 15,177 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. There is currently a backlog of 5,724 tests awaiting results. A total of 15,406,849 tests have been completed since the start of the pandemic.

Test positivity for Monday was 3.6 per cent. That figure is up from Sunday’s at 2.8 per cent and Saturday’s at 3.1. It is also down from last week when it was 4.3 per cent.

Ontario reported 547 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 (up by two from the previous day) with 497 patients in intensive care units (down by 13) and 339 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (down by five). 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: 132,696 variant cases, which is up by 705 since the previous day,

“Beta” the B.1.351 VOC: 1,097 variant cases which is up by 21 since the previous day.

“Gamma” the P.1 VOC: 3,979 variant cases which is up by 239 since the previous day.

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

• 267,207 people are male — an increase of 240 cases.
• 265,414 people are female — an increase of 264 cases.
• 85,687 people are 19 and under — an increase of 114 cases.
• 200,988 people are 20 to 39 — an increase of 210 cases.
• 153,525 people are 40 to 59 — an increase of 136 cases.
• 71,450 people are 60 to 79 — an increase of 50 cases.
• 24,856 people are 80 and over — an increase of 14 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: 528 (+2)
• Deaths reported in ages 60 to 79: 2,759 (+6)
• Deaths reported in ages 80 and older: 5,506 (+7)
• The province notes there may be a reporting delay for deaths and data corrections or updates can result in death records being removed.