3,887 people in Ontario hospitals with COVID, 578 in intensive care

The latest figures released by the Ontario government Monday morning show there are 3,887 people in hospital with COVID-19, with 578 of them in intensive care.

The province recently began distinguishing between those who were admitted to hospital directly because of COVID, and those who were admitted for other reasons but tested positive for the virus.

Those figures aren’t updated on Mondays, however, due to incomplete data reporting from hospitals over the weekend.

However, figures from last week show roughly 45 per cent of those hospitalized with COVID were admitted for other reasons. Of those in intensive care with the virus, roughly 20 per cent were admitted for other reasons.

Ontario also reported 8,521 new COVID cases Monday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the province since the pandemic began to 956,607.

Testing restrictions that recently came into effect mean that figure is an underestimate.

Just over 37,000 additional tests were completed. The test positivity rate was 24.2 per cent.

Twenty-three additional COVID-related deaths were also reported Monday, bringing the provincial death toll to 10,628. One of the deaths occurred more than one month ago and was added due to data cleaning, Public Health Ontario said.