Ontario reports more than 3,200 COVID-19 cases, 17 deaths

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Ontario is reporting 3,215 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, bringing the provincial total to 370,817.

Wednesday’s case count is higher than Tuesday’s which saw 3,065 new infections. On Monday, 2,938 new cases were recorded and 3,041 on Sunday. It is also the largest daily increase since mid-January.

According to Wednesday’s provincial report, 1,095 cases were recorded in Toronto, 596 in Peel Region, 342 in York Region, 225 in Ottawa, 187 in Durham Region, 113 in Middlesex-London and 104 in Hamilton.

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 7,475 as 17 more deaths were recorded.

Read more:
Ontario considering provincewide stay-at-home order, closing non-essential retail: sources

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Meanwhile, 335,983 Ontario residents were reported to have recovered from COVID-19, which is about 91 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 2,407 from the previous day.

Active cases in Ontario now stand at 27,359 — up from the previous day when it was at 26,568, and up from March 31 when it was at 20,155. At the peak of the coronavirus surge in January, active cases hit above 30,000.

The government said 49,889 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. There is currently a backlog of 41,624 tests awaiting results. A total of 12,905,286 tests have been completed since the start of the pandemic.

Test positivity for Wednesday was 6.7 per cent. That figure is down from Tuesday’s at 8.9 per cent, but is up from last week when it was 4.8 per cent.

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Ontario reported 1,397 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 (up by 236 from the previous day) with 504 in intensive care units (down by six) and 311 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (up by one).

As of 8 p.m. on Tuesday, the provincial government reported administering 2,726,221 total COVID-19 vaccine doses. That marks an increase of 104,382 vaccines in the last day, a single-day high as the province has never administered more than 100,000 vaccines in 24 hours. There are 324,148 people fully vaccinated with two doses.

“We’re getting needles into arms as quickly and safely as possible and we continue to ramp up capacity. Vaccines remain our best defense in the fight against COVID-19. Please sign up when it’s your turn,” Health Minister Christine Elliott tweeted Wednesday.

Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Oxford-AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson are the vaccines currently approved in Canada. The first three require two shots administered several weeks apart while the fourth requires only one. J & J vaccines have not yet arrived in Canada.

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Variants of concern in Ontario

Officials have listed breakdown data for the new VOCs (variants of concern) detected so far in the province which consist of the B.1.1.7 (first detected in the United Kingdom), B.1.351 (first detected in South Africa), P.1 (first detected in Brazil), as well as mutations that have no determined lineage.

The B.1.1.7 VOC is currently the dominating known strain at 2,291 variant cases, which is up by 126 since the previous day, 72 B.1.351 variant cases which is up by one, and 120 P.1 variant cases which is up by 14.

The total case count for a mutation that was detected but the lineage was not determined was 28,912, an increase of 1,719 cases in the last day.

Here is a breakdown of the total cases in Ontario by gender and age:

  • 183,518 people are male — an increase of 1,589 cases.
  • 185,134 people are female — an increase of 1,606 cases.
  • 54,329 people are 19 and under — an increase of 620 cases.
  • 135,897 people are 20 to 39 — an increase of 1,188 cases.
  • 106,526 people are 40 to 59 — an increase of 929 cases.
  • 52,102 people are 60 to 79 — an increase of 392 cases.
  • 21,873 people are 80 and over — an increase of 82 cases.
  • The province notes that not all cases have a reported age or gender.

Here is a breakdown of the total deaths related to COVID-19 by age:

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  • Deaths reported in ages 19 and under: 2
  • Deaths reported in ages 20 to 39: 34
  • Deaths reported in ages 40 to 59: 318
  • Deaths reported in ages 60 to 79: 2,126
  • Deaths reported in ages 80 and older: 4,994
  • The province notes there may be a reporting delay for deaths and data corrections or updates can result in death records being removed.

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