Ontario reports 492 new COVID-19 cases, 12 more deaths

TORONTO -

Ontario health officials are reporting 492 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, as well as 12 more deaths due to the disease.

Today’s case count comes after officials logged 413 new cases on Thursday, 304 new cases on Wednesday 328 new cases on Tuesday and 373 new cases on Monday.

Ontario’s rolling seven-day average now stands at 405, down from 465 at this point last week.

With 28,906 tests processed in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health says the positivity rate in the province stands at about 1.4 per cent.

Of the new infections reported Friday, 325 cases involved people who are either unvaccinated, partially vaccinated or their vaccination status is unknown. The remaining 167 infections involved people who are fully vaccinated.

The province recorded 12 new deaths on Friday, bringing the total death tally in the province to 9,839. One of the deaths happened more than a month ago, but was added to the cumulative count due to a data cleaning.

The province stated at least 261 people are in hospital due to COVID-19, including 36 people who are fully vaccinated and 225 people who are either not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status.

At least 149 patients are in intensive care in Ontario hospitals and 94 are breathing with the assistance of a ventilator.

The province deemed 415 more cases of the disease to be resolved as of Friday, bringing Ontario’s number of recovered patients up to 583,512.

Today’s report brings the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Ontario to 596,772, including deaths and recoveries.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is set to release the province's long-term COVID-19 reopening strategy Friday afternoon.

The province has been in Step 3 of its reopening plan for more than three months, which allowed all indoor services to reopen with capacity limits and public health measures still in place.

WHERE ARE THE NEW COVID-19 CASES IN ONTARIO

In the Greater Toronto Area, officials reported 64 new cases in Toronto, 59 new cases in Peel Region, 33 new cases in York Region and 19 new cases in Durham Region.

Officials also reported 39 new cases in Sudbury and its districts, 38 new cases in Ottawa, 32 new cases in Middlesex-London, 23 new cases each in Windsor-Essex and Hamilton and 20 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 492 new infections reported on Friday, 99 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 159 cases in people between the ages of 20 and 39.

As well, officials found 131 cases in people between the ages of 40 and 59, 58 cases in people between the ages of 60 and 79 and nine cases in people over the age of 80.

On Friday, officials reported 95 new cases in Ontario schools, including 84 cases involving students and 10 cases involving staff. Officials did not release info about the remaining one case.

The province reported that 550 out 4,844 schools have at least one case of COVID-19. Currently, two schools are closed due to outbreaks.

Officials also reported an additional 115 cases of the Delta variant in lab-confirmed COVID-19 tests. This brings the total number of cases to 20,190.

MORE THAN 10.9M PEOPLE FULLY VACCINATED IN ONTARIO

The province reports that 10,900,029 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 25,770 doses of the vaccine were administered to Ontario residents.

Just over 22.3 million vaccine doses have been administered in the province since the rollout began last year.