Number of people in hospitals, ICUs with COVID continues to increase in Ontario

The number of people in Ontario hospitals and intensive care units with COVID-19 continues to increase, according to the latest data released by the province Saturday morning.

The data shows that there are currently 2,594 people in Ontario hospitals with COVID-19, which is the highest that figure has been since the pandemic began. It has increased by 122 since Friday’s report.

There are 385 people in intensive care units due to COVID, which is up by 47. Of them, 219 people are on a ventilator, which is up by 42.

One week ago on Jan. 1, there were 1,314 people reported to be in hospital with COVID and 214 in ICUs due to the virus.

It’s important to note that the province recently announced that it will soon be changing the way it reports COVID-19 hospitalizations in order to identify incidental admissions.

“Currently, Ontario’s hospitalizations include patients who were admitted for COVID-19, as well as individuals who were admitted for other reasons and are now testing positive for COVID-19,” Alexandra Hilkene, a spokesperson for Health Minister Christine Elliott, told Global News Friday.

Chief medical officer of health Dr. Kieran Moore has said that the figure indicating the number of people  in ICUs with COVID is likely more accurate as hospitals are only asked to report patients who are in intensive care with COVID-related critical illness.

Meanwhile, on Saturday Ontario also reported 13,362 new confirmed cases of COVID, though new testing restrictions that recently took effect mean that number is an underestimation.

There have now been 866,632 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Ontario since the pandemic began.

A total of 719,739 COVID-19 cases are considered resolved, which is up by 12,007.

Over the past day, 55,700 additional tests were completed. The positivity rate stands at 30.6 per cent. There are 104,277 tests under investigation.

There were 31 additional virus-related deaths reported, bringing the provincial death toll to 10,345. Public Health Ontario indicated that one death was removed from the total due to data cleaning.

There were 184,101 additional COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in Ontario Friday, bringing the provincial total to 28,324,152.

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