Ontario reports 653 more cases of COVID-19, six additional deaths

TORONTO -

Health officials in Ontario are reporting another 653 cases of COVID-19 Sunday as well as six additional deaths related to the disease.

Of the cases recorded today, 499 involve individuals who are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status and 154 are in fully vaccinated individuals.

There are 198 people in hospital with COVID-19, including 177 people in the ICU, though the vaccination status of those hospitalized was not released by the province.

Sunday’s report brings the province’s seven-day average for the number of cases logged to 620. A week ago today that number was 709.

So far, Ontario has seen 583,928 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 throughout the pandemic. That number includes 568,633 resolved cases and 9,704 deaths – six of which were reported in the last 24 hours although three occurred last month.

With 31,063 tests processed since yesterday, the Ministry of Health says that Ontario’s COVID-19 positivity rate is two per cent.

Where are the new COVID-19 cases?

Most of the cases reported by the province on Sunday were found in Toronto (109), Ottawa (71), and Hamilton (66).

Case counts in the double digits were also recorded in Peel Region (55), Halton Region (42), Windsor-Essex (42), and York Region (41).

Update on COVID-19 variants of concern

Labs confirmed 246 additional cases of the COVID-19 variant B.1.617.2 known as Delta.

This brings the total number of lab-confirmed infections to 18,260.

Moreover, four more cases of the Alpha variant B.11.7 were also confirmed following genomic sequencing, pushing the case total to 146,461.

No new cases of the Gamma variant P.1 or Beta variant B.1.351 were found in the last 24-hour period.

COVID-19 vaccinations in Ontario

As of today, 80.2 per cent of eligible Ontarians have received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine and are considered to be fully vaccinated, Health Minister Christine Elliott said in a tweet.

Elliott also noted that 85.8 per cent of the province’s eligible population now has at least one dose and that 21,651,850 needles have gone into arms during Ontario’s 10-month vaccination campaign.