Ontario logs 784 new COVID-19 cases and 6 more deaths

TORONTO -

Ontario is reporting 784 new COVID-19 infections, marking the fourth day in a row in which the daily case count has been above the 700 mark.

Sunday’s new cases represent a slight decrease from the 857 infections on Saturday, the 848 on Friday and the 798 on Thursday.

With just over 23,600 COVID-19 tests processed in the last 24-hour period, the Ministry of Health says the province’s positivity rate is about 3.2 per cent.

The seven-day average of daily infections now stands at 712, down from 746 last week in part due to a three-day stretch in which the case counts were in the 500s.

Health Minister Christine Elliott says that of the 784 cases reported Sunday, there were 602 cases found in people who were not fully vaccinated or who had an unknown status.

Health officials also reported six additional deaths related to COVID-19 on Sunday, adding that two of them "occurred more than one month ago and were added to the cumulative count based on data cleaning."

There are 184 people in Ontario intensive care units as a result of COVID-19. One hundred and seven of those patients are breathing with the assistance of a ventilator.

However, not all hospitals report COVID-19 data on the weekends.

The total number of lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases in Ontario is now 574,619, including 9,611 deaths and 558,759 recoveries.

WHERE ARE THE COVID-19 CASES?

Officials say there are 147 cases in Toronto, 73 in Windsor-Essex, 67 in Peel Region and 65 in York Region.

Other municipalities reporting more than 20 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday include Ottawa (57), Hamilton (57), Niagara (45), Durham (42), Simcoe-Muskoka (37), Halton (29), and Middlesex-London (22).

According to the province’s epidemiology report, 40 of Sunday’s new infections were found in children under the age of four.

There were 100 cases in children between the ages of five and 11 and 83 cases in youth aged 12 to 17.

The majority of new infections were found in individuals between the ages of 20 and 39 with 217 cases and between the ages of 40 and 59 with 155 cases.

Seventy-six cases were in people between the ages of 60 and 70 while 14 cases were in seniors over the age of 80.

MORE THAN 500 DELTA VARIANT CASES IDENTIFIED

Another 507 cases of the Delta variant were identified Sunday in lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases, health officials said.

This brings the total number of Delta variant cases in Ontario to 14,646.

Officials have said that increasing Ontario’s vaccination rate to 90 per cent will help in curbing the spread of the Delta variant.

As of Sunday, 84.3 per cent of eligible residents aged 12 and up have received one doses while 78 per cent have received both doses and are considered fully immunized.