Ontario reports 727 new COVID-19 cases, 11 more deaths

Ontario is reporting 727 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, as the seven-day average continues to decline. The provincial case total now stands at 582,635.

Of the 727 new cases recorded, the data showed 447 were unvaccinated people, 56 were partially vaccinated people, 170 were fully vaccinated people and for 54 people the vaccination status was unknown.

According to Friday’s report, 144 cases were recorded in Toronto, 83 in Peel Region, 70 in Ottawa, 66 in Hamilton, 54 in York Region, 35 in Durham Region, 33 in Windsor-Essex and 30 in Eastern Ontario Health Unit.

All other local public health units reported fewer than 30 new cases in the provincial report.

The death toll in the province has risen to 9,688, as 11 more virus-related deaths were recorded including three of those from more than a month ago due to data cleanup.

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

As of 8 p.m. on Thursday, 46,550 vaccines (18,056 for a first shot and 28,494 for a second shot) were administered in the last day.

There are more than 10.4 million people fully immunized with two doses, which is 79.8 per cent of the eligible (12 and older) population. First dose coverage stands at 85.6 per cent.

Meanwhile, 567,200 Ontario residents were reported to have recovered from COVID-19, which is about 97 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 814 from the previous day.

Active cases in Ontario now stand at 5,747 — down from the previous day when it was at 5,845, and is also down from Sept. 17 when it was at 6,239. 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 655 which is down from yesterday’s at 665, and is also down from last week when it was 724. A month ago, the seven-day average was around 600.

The government said 36,855 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. There is currently a backlog of 17,809 tests awaiting results.

Test positivity hit 1.8 per cent. Last week, test positivity was at 2.5 per cent.

Hospitalizations in Ontario

Ontario reported 308 people in general hospital wards with COVID-19 (up by one from the previous day) with 193 patients in intensive care units (unchanged) and 167 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (down by one).

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.

For those in general hospital wards with COVID, 122 were unvaccinated, 9 were partially vaccinated and 39 were fully vaccinated. For those in ICUs, 108 were unvaccinated while 11 were partially vaccinated and 11 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 has recorded 5,808 patients in total have ever been in ICU with 29,727 patients having been hospitalized due to COVID since the start of the pandemic.

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): 146,455 variant cases, which is unchanged since the previous day. This strain dominated Ontario’s third wave.

“Delta” the B.1.617.2 VOC (first detected in India): 17,836 variant cases, which is up by 98 since the previous day. This strain is dominating Ontario’s fourth wave.

“Beta” the B.1.351 VOC (first detected in South Africa): 1,502 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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