Ontario reports 1,074 people in hospital with COVID-19, 32 new deaths

Ontario health officials say there are currently 1,074 people in hospital with COVID-19, including 168 patients in intensive care.

Wednesday’s hospitalization total marks a slight drop over the 1,091 count reported on Tuesday, but a strong increase over the 857 count reported on Monday.

The total number of patients in intensive care units across Ontario also dropped slightly on Wednesday from 173 yesterday.

Officials also reported 32 new more deaths due to COVID-19. The province stated that 10 over the deaths occurred over the past 30 days, while the remaining 22 happened over a month ago but we added to the total count due to a data cleaning.

Since the start of the pandemic, 12,511 have died due to the disease.

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The province said that of the 168 people in the ICU with COVID-19 on Wednesday, 33 are unvaccinated, four are partially vaccinated and 68 are fully vaccinated. The remaining 63 have an unknown vaccination status.

According to data released by the Ontario Science Table on Tuesday, which takes into account population sizes, people who are fully vaccinated with at least two doses are 75.7 per cent less likely to end up in hospital and 85.3 per cent less likely to end up in ICU compared to people who are unvaccinated.

The province reported 3,444 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, but health officials have warned that number is an underestimate due to testing limitations and backlogs.

With 21,553 tests processed in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health says the province's positivity rate is about 18 per cent.

In the Greater Toronto Area, officials reported 876 new cases in Toronto, 203 new cases in Peel Region, 181 new cases in Durham Region, 156 new cases in York Region and 122 new cases in Halton Region.

Officials also reported 221 new cases in Simcoe Muskoka, 190 new cases in Ottawa and 161 new cases in Hamilton. All other regions reported fewer than 100 new cases on Wednesday.

The province deemed 2,872 more cases of the disease to be resolved as of Wednesday, bringing Ontario's number of recovered patients up to 1,142,051.

Today's report brings the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Ontario to 1,180,121.

The province reported 94 resident cases and 29 staff cases in long-term care settings across Ontario. Officials said that at least 104 long-term care homes are currently dealing with an outbreak.