Ontario reports 778 patients in hospital with COVID-19 as positivity rate rises

Ontario health officials are reporting 778 people in hospital with COVID-19 Wednesday, including 165 patients in intensive care, as the provincial positivity rate rises.

Wednesday’s hospitalizations case count marks a slight decrease over the 790 reported on Tuesday.

Of the patients hospitalized, 148 patients are unvaccinated and 476 are fully vaccinated. The vaccination status of the remaining patients is unknown.

About 50 per cent of patients being treated for COVID-19 in hospital Wednesday were admitted for COVID-19, while the remaining 50 per cent tested positive after an unrelated admission. In ICUs, those percentages are 73 per cent and 27 per cent, respectively.

Of Ontario patients currently being treated for COVID-19 in ICUs, 25 are unvaccinated and 60 are fully vaccinated. The vaccination status of the remaining patients is unknown.

Officials also reported 13 new deaths due to COVID-19. Officials said 12 of the deaths occurred over the past 30 days, while one of them took place over a month ago.

Since the start of the pandemic, 12,427 individuals have lost their lives due to the disease.

With 17,309 tests processed in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health says the province's positivity rate is about 15.1 per cent — a significant increase over Wednesday's rate of 14.4 per cent.

The province reported 2,814 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, but health officials have warned that number is an underestimate due to testing limitations and backlogs.

Wastewater data, provided by Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Table, appears to confirm this slight increase in infection. In nearly every region in the province the concentration of the disease in wastewaters has started to rise, prompting some experts to say Ontario has entered a sixth wave of the pandemic.

The province deemed 2,419 more cases of the disease to be resolved as of Wednesday, bringing Ontario's number of recovered patients up to 1,127,307.

Today's report brings the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Ontario to 1,159,470.