As the Ontario government reported 2,759 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, it also marked a pivotal new milestone in its 15-month pandemic fight: cumulatively more than half a million residents, 502,171, have tested positive for the virus.
When COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic in March 2020, Ontario’s first 100,000 cumulative cases were recorded on Nov. 20, then 200,000 cases on Jan. 6, then 300,000 cases on Feb. 28, and 400,000 cases on April 15.
The last 100,000 cases to today’s date took just shy of one month (28 days) to reach as the province grappled with a third wave that saw record cases and hospitalizations.
However, Thursday’s case count is higher than Wednesday’s which saw 2,320 new infections. On Tuesday, 2,073 were recorded and 2,716 on Monday. It is also the fourth day in a row cases are below 3,000 as Ontario continues to see a downward trend with active cases and the seven-day average declining.
According to Thursday’s report, 774 cases were recorded in Toronto, 602 in Peel Region, 258 in York Region, 147 in Durham Region, 133 in Hamilton, 110 in Halton Region. and 105 in Ottawa.
All other local public health units reported fewer than 100 new cases in the provincial report.
The death toll in the province has risen to 8,405 as 31 more deaths were recorded.
Meanwhile, 464,531 Ontario residents were reported to have recovered from COVID-19, which is about 92 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 3,455 from the previous day.
There were more resolved cases than new cases on Thursday.
Active cases in Ontario now stand at 29,235 — down from the previous day when it was at 29,962, and is down from May 6 when it was at 34,377. 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 2,731, which is down from yesterday at 2,826, and is down from last week at 3,369. A month ago, the seven-day average was around 3,800.
The government said 47,638 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. There is currently a backlog of 24,365 tests awaiting results. A total of 14,651,044 tests have been completed since the start of the pandemic.
Test positivity for Thursday was 5.7 per cent. That figure is down from Wednesday’s at 6.4 per cent, and is down from last week when it was 6.8 per cent.
Ontario reported 1,632 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 (down by 41 from the previous day) with 776 patients in intensive care units (unchanged) and 568 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (up by 9).
As of 8 p.m. on Wednesday, more than 6.6 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered. That marks an increase of 137,697 vaccines in the last day. There are 407,600 people fully vaccinated with two doses.
— More to come.
© 2021 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
