Ontario reports 321 new COVID-19 cases, 10 additional deaths

TORONTO -

Another 321 cases of COVID-19 are being reported across Ontario on Wednesday, as well as 10 additional deaths linked to the disease.

The seven-day average for the number of cases reported in the province stands at 366. This time last week, that number was 406.

Of the cases reported Wednesday, 158 involve individuals who are unvaccinated and 118 involve those who are fully vaccinated. The 45 remaining cases involve people who are either not fully vaccinated or their vaccination status is unknown at this time.

Wednesday’s report marks a jump from the 269 novel coronavirus infections logged a day earlier, which was the lowest single-day case total recorded in months.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Ontario has seen 598,431 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 585,591 recoveries and 9,862 deaths—10 of which were reported by the province today. Nine of those deaths occurred in September and one occurred more than one month ago but are only being reported today due to a “data cleaning,” the government said.

Right now, there are 215 people in hospital with COVID-19, including 188 patients who are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status and 27 patients who are fully vaccinated. Of the 134 patients in the ICU, 118 are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status and 16 are fully vaccinated.

With 30,776 tests processed in the last 24 hours, Ontario's COVID-19 positivity rate stands at 1.4 per cent, according to the Ministry of Health.

Where are the new COVID-19 cases?

Most of the cases reported by the province on Wednesday were found in Toronto (66), York Region (33), Ottawa (27), and Sudbury (27).

Other areas that reported notable COVID-19 case counts include Windsor-Essex (17), Halton Region (17), Peel Region (16), and Middlesex-London (16).

Ninety COVID-19 infections were found in schools across Ontario since Tuesday. Eighty-five of those cases were recorded in students and the remaining five were in staff members.

There are 533 schools with at least one confirmed case and two facilities are currently closed as a result.

In the last 24 hours, labs confirmed seven additional cases of the COVID-19 Delta variant B.1.617.2. The province has confirmed 20,618 cases of the strain so far. 

Update on COVID-19 vaccinations

As of Wednesday, nearly 88 per cent of the eligible population has one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine and almost 84.1 per cent have two doses and are considered to be fully vaccinated.

On Tuesday, Premier Doug Ford said the province would hit its target of 90 per cent vaccination coverage in those eligible even without the vaccine approval for children under 12.