Ontario reports 6 new COVID-19 deaths; hospitalizations continue to fall

Ontario reported six new COVID-19 deaths and small declines in hospitalization on Thursday, the final day the province plans to provide daily statistics on the spread of coronavirus.

The Ministry of Health said all six deaths occurred in the past 30 days.

Two involved residents of the long-term care system.

There have been 53 deaths in the past seven days, 287 in the past 30 days and 13,357 overall since March 2020.

At hospitals, the number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 fell to 491, down 15 from Wednesday and 58 from one week ago.

Of those, 109 were in intensive care – down six from Wednesday – and 45 were breathing with a ventilator.

Thursday is the last day the province plans to provide complete daily statistics on testing, deaths and hospitalizations as it moves to a weekly reporting schedule.

The province has been providing daily COVID-19 statistics since mid-February 2020.

Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, citing wastewater surveillance data, says transmission appears to be on the rebound after weeks of declines.

Of the 777 cases of COVID-19 confirmed though PCR testing across the province on Thursday, the Ministry of Health says 69 cases involved people who were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, 134 cases involved people with two doses, 506 cases involved people with three or more doses and the vaccination status of 68 cases was not known.

Provincial labs processed 12,310 specimens in the previous period, generating a positivity rate of 6.9 per cent.

Average weekly positivity stands at 6.8 per cent this week, and 7.3 per cent one week earlier.

The province says 12,946 COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered on Wednesday.

Of those, 682 were first doses, 930 were second doses, 1,578 were third doses and 9,756 were fourth doses.