Ontario reports 417 new COVID-19 cases, 3 more deaths

Ontario is reporting 417 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, a slight increase from the previous day but also below the seven-day average. The provincial case total now stands at 593,437.

Of the 417 new cases recorded, the data showed 228 were unvaccinated people, 16 were partially vaccinated people, 146 were fully vaccinated people and for 27 people the vaccination status was unknown.

According to Thursday’s report, 69 cases were recorded in Toronto, 44 in Eastern Ontario Health Unit, 43 in Peel Region, 30 in Hamilton, 29 in Ottawa and 23 in Windsor-Essex.

All other local public health units reported fewer than 20 new cases in the provincial report.

The death toll in the province has risen to 9,807 as three more deaths were recorded.

Vaccinations, recoveries, testing, 7-day average in Ontario

As of 8 p.m. on Wednesday, 28,756 vaccines (10,346 for a first shot and 18,410 for a second shot) were administered in the last day.

There are more than 10.7 million people fully immunized with two doses, which is 82.6 per cent of the eligible (12 and older) population. First dose coverage stands at 87.2 per cent.

Meanwhile, 579,608 Ontario residents were reported to have recovered from COVID-19, which is about 97 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 528 from the previous day.

Active cases in Ontario now stand at 4,022 — down from the previous day when it was at 4,136, and is down from Oct. 7 when it was at 4,575. 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 476, which is down from the week prior when it was 565. A month ago, the seven-day average was around 700.

The government said 35,421 tests were processed in the previous 24 hours. There are 18,914 tests currently under investigation.

Test positivity hit 1.5 per cent. Last week, test positivity was at 1.7 per cent.

Hospitalizations in Ontario

Ontario reported 254 people in general hospital wards with COVID-19 (up by 12 from the previous day) with 158 patients in intensive care units (up by five) and 129 patients in intensive care units on a ventilator (up by five).

In the third wave peak, which was the worst wave for hospitalizations, the province saw as many as 900 patients in ICUs with COVID and almost 2,400 in general hospital wards.

Provincial officials recently announced they would start including the vaccination status of those hospitalized due to COVID-19 as part of their daily COVID-19 data reporting. They noted the new dataset will grow and improve over time as more information is collected. There may be a discrepancy due to how and when the information for both is collected.

For those in general hospital wards with COVID, 98  were unvaccinated, 13 were partially vaccinated and 31 were fully vaccinated. For those in ICUs, 79 were unvaccinated while 6 were partially vaccinated and 13 were fully vaccinated.

Variants of concern in Ontario

Officials have listed breakdown data for the new VOCs (variants of concern) detected so far in the province which consists of:

“Alpha” the B.1.1.7 VOC (first detected in the United Kingdom): 146,494 variant cases, which is up by 2 since the previous day. This strain dominated Ontario’s third wave.

“Delta” the B.1.617.2 VOC (first detected in India): 19,518variant cases, which is up by 70 since the previous day. This strain is dominating Ontario’s fourth wave.

“Beta” the B.1.351 VOC (first detected in South Africa): 1,503 variant cases, which is unchanged since the previous day.

“Gamma” the P.1 VOC (first detected in Brazil): 5,229 variant cases, which is unchanged since the previous day.

NOTE: It takes several days for positive COVID-19 tests to be re-examined for the exact variant. Therefore, there may be more variant cases than overall cases in daily reporting.

More to come.

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