Ontario logs 476 new COVID-19 cases, 14 more deaths

TORONTO -

Ontario health officials are reporting 476 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, as well as 14 more deaths due to the disease.

Today’s case count comes after officials reported 429 new cases on Tuesday, 511 new cases on Monday, 580 new cases on Sunday and 704 new cases on Saturday.

Ontario’s rolling seven-day average now stands at 573, down from 610 at this point last week. The seven-day average has been steadily decreasing.

With 39,460 tests processed in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health says the positivity rate in the province fell to 1.7 per cent.

Of the new infections reported Wednesday, 335 cases involved people who are either unvaccinated, partially vaccinated or their vaccination status is unknown. The remaining 141 infections involved people who are fully vaccinated.

The province recorded 14 new deaths on Wednesday, bringing the total death tally in the province to 9,771. The province said four of the deaths occurred more than a month ago but officials just added them to cumulative count due to a data cleaning.

The province stated at least 280 people are in hospital due to COVID-19, including 46 people who are fully vaccinated and 234 people who are either not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status.

At least 156 patients are in intensive care in Ontario hospitals and 103 are breathing with the assistance of a ventilator.

The province deemed 617 more cases of the disease to be resolved as of Wednesday, bringing Ontario’s number of recovered patients up to 575,167.

Today’s report brings the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Ontario to 589,517, including deaths and recoveries.

WHERE ARE THE NEW COVID-19 CASES IN ONTARIO

Most of the new cases were found in parts of the Greater Toronto Area. Officials reported 84 new cases in Toronto, 44 new cases in York Region, 39 new cases in Peel Region and 21 new cases in Durham Region.

Officials also reported 44 new cases in Windsor-Essex, 33 new cases in Hamilton, 25 new cases in Middlesex-London, 23 new cases in Ottawa and 22 new cases in Niagara Region. All other regions reported fewer than 20 new cases of the disease.

According to the province’s epidemiology report, of the 476 new infections reported on Wednesday, 82 cases were identified in children under the age of 12.

The province also recorded 37 cases in youth between the ages of 12 and 19 and another 152 cases in people between the ages of 20 and 39.

As well, officials found 132 cases in people between the ages of 40 and 59, 71 cases in people between the ages of 60 and 79 and two cases in people over the age of 80.

On Wednesday, officials reported 173 new cases in Ontario schools, including 156 cases involving students and 16 cases involving staff. The province said the remaining one case was not identified.

The province reported that 773 out 4,844 schools have at least one case of COVID-19. Currently, eight schools are closed due to outbreaks.

Officials also reported an additional 44 cases of the Delta variant in lab-confirmed COVID-19 tests. This brings the total number of cases to 18,941.

MORE THAN 10.6M PEOPLE FULLY VACCINATED IN ONTARIO

The province reports that 10,649,353 people in Ontario have received both doses of a COVID-19 vaccine and are now considered fully vaccinated against the disease.

In the last 24-hour period, officials said 32,296 doses of the vaccine were administered to Ontario residents.

Just over 21.9 million vaccine doses have been administered in the province since the rollout began last year.