Nearly 1,200 new cases of COVID-19 reported in Ontario over two days

TORONTO -

Ontario is reporting close to 1,200 COVID-19 infections in the last 48 hours.

Of the 1,145 cases logged Tuesday, 581 were recorded on Monday and 564 were recorded today.

The province did not report COVID-19 case numbers on Monday due to the statutory holiday.

Before Tuesday’s report, the province found 811 cases on Sunday, 944 on Saturday, and 807 on Friday.

The seven-day average for the number of cases reported across Ontario stands at 746. This time last week that number was 701.

According to Health Minister Christine Elliott, 434 of the cases reported Tuesday are in individuals who are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status and 130 are in fully vaccinated individuals.

Similarly, 457 of the cases logged Monday were in individuals who are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status and 124 were in fully vaccinated individuals.

Some 36,000 tests were processed over the last 48 hours, with 19,200 swabs completed on Monday and 17,118 on Tuesday. Those tests yielded a positivity rate of 3.6 and 3.4 per cent, respectively.

Right now, there are 295 people in hospital with COVID-19. At least 192 of those patients are being treated in an intensive care unit. The vaccination status of all hospitalized COVID-19 patients was not disclosed by the province. 

Additionally, five more deaths related to COVID-19 were reported over the last two days.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Ontario has seen 570,778 lab-confirmed cases of the virus, including 554,953 patients who have recovered and 9,553 deaths. 

As of today, 83.7 per cent of Ontarians over the age of 12 have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 77.2 per cent have received both doses and are considered to be fully vaccinated. 

Where are the new COVID-19 cases?

Most of the cases reported over the past two days were found in Toronto (232), Peel Region (139), and York Region (125).

Other areas that reported high case numbers on Monday and Tuesday include Windsor-Essex (127), Hamilton (75), Ottawa (57), Durham Region (53), Niagara (48), Halton Region (40), Simcoe Muskoka (39), and Middlesex-London (38).

Update on COVID-19 variants of concern

Health officials confirmed 180 cases of the COVID-19 variant known as Delta in the last 48 hours.

That number includes 10 cases that were confirmed Tuesday and 170 from a day earlier.

The case total for the B.1.617.2 variant stands at 12,647.

Four additional cases of the Alpha variant B.1.1.7 were also recorded on Tuesday alone. The case total for that strain is 146,435.

No new cases of the Beta variant B.1.351 or Gamma variant P.1 were found in the past two days.