Ontario is reporting 678 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, a slight increase from the previous day which saw 660. The provincial case total now stands at 561,975.
Of the 678 new cases recorded, the data showed 395 were unvaccinated people, 82 were partially vaccinated people, 141 were fully vaccinated people and for 60 people the vaccination status was unknown.
According to Thursday’s report, 144 cases were recorded in Toronto, 102 in Peel Region, 97 in York Region, 78 in Windsor-Essex and 51 in Durham Region.
All other local public health units reported fewer than 50 new cases in the provincial report.
The death toll in the province has remained at 9,472 as no new deaths were recorded.
As of 8 p.m. on Wednesday, 38,932 vaccines (13,950 for a first shot and 24,982 for a second shot) were administered in the last day.
There are more than 9.8 million people fully immunized with two doses, which is 75.5 per cent of the eligible (12 and older) population. First dose coverage stands at 82.5 per cent.
Hospitalizations in Ontario
Ontario reported 302 people in general hospital wards with COVID-19 (up by 19 from the previous day) with 165 patients in intensive care units (up by four) and 134 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (up by four).
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.
The most recent data showed for those in general hospital wards with COVID, 137 were unvaccinated, 14 were partially vaccinated and 31 were fully vaccinated. For those in ICUs, 89 were unvaccinated while 9 were partially vaccinated and 10 were fully vaccinated.
In the third wave peak, which was the worst wave for hospitalizations, the province saw as many as 900 patients in ICUs with COVID. The province’s data shows 5,577 patients in total have ever been in ICU with 28,820 patients having been hospitalized due to COVID since the start of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, 547,198 Ontario residents were reported to have recovered from COVID-19, which is about 97 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 513 from the previous day.
Active cases in Ontario now stand at 5,305 — up from the previous day when it was at 5,140, and up from Aug. 19 when it was at 4,243. 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 646 which is up from yesterday at 625, and is up from last week when it was 498. A month ago, the seven-day average was around 160.
The government said 27,815 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. There is currently a backlog of 14,507 tests awaiting results.
Test positivity for Thursday hit 2.8 per cent. Last week, test positivity was at 2.4 per cent.
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 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), P.1 (now named by WHO as “Gamma” and was first detected in Brazil), and B.1.617.2 (now named by WHO as “Delta” and was first detected in India).
“Alpha” the B.1.1.7 VOC: 146,025 variant cases, which is up by 107 since the previous day.
“Beta” the B.1.351 VOC: 1,500 variant cases, which is unchanged since the previous day.
“Gamma” the P.1 VOC: 5,221 variant cases, which is unchanged since the previous day.
“Delta” B.1.617.2 VOC: 8,246 variant cases, which is up by 216 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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