Ontario reports drop in COVID-19 cases, logs fewer than 150 new infections

TORONTO -

Ontario health officials are reporting nearly 140 new cases of COVID-19 and 11 more deaths due to the disease.

The province confirmed 139 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Wednesday. Ontario has been reporting fewer than 200 new cases daily for the past three days.

Ontario’s rolling seven-day average now stands at 198, up from 160 at this point last week.

With 17,115 tests processed in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health says the positivity rate in the province stands at 1.2 per cent.

The province recorded 11 new deaths on Wednesday, bringing the total death tally in the province to 9,360.

Seven of the deaths reported today occurred between December 2020 and February 2021, the Ministry of Health said. They are being reported as part of a data catch-up.

There are at least 108 patients in intensive care in Ontario hospitals and 76 are breathing with the assistance of a ventilator.

The province deemed 151 more cases of the disease to be resolved as of Wednesday, bringing Ontario’s number of recovered patients up to 540,075.

Today’s report brings the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Ontario to 551,125, including deaths and recoveries.

WHERE ARE THE COVID-19 CASES IN ONTARIO

In the Greater Toronto Area, officials reported 26 new cases in Toronto, 18 new cases in Peel Region, 15 new cases in York Region, 11 in Durham Region and zero in Halton Region.

Officials also reported 19 new cases in Waterloo region, 12 new cases in Hamilton and 10 new cases in Windsor. All other regions outside of the GTA reported fewer than 10 new cases of the disease.

Ontario is currently in Step 3 of its reopening plan. The province is operating under the loosest set of public health restrictions observed in months. In order to move to a complete reopening, the province has set certain vaccination targets.

VARIANTS OF CONCERN IN ONTARIO UPDATE

The province detected several more cases of variants of concern on Wednesday. Officials are analyzing cases on an ongoing basis to detect mutations and variants of concerns.

The province confirmed an additional two new cases of Alpha B.1.1.7 on Wednesday. The total case count for the strain now stands at 145,538.

Officials identified no new cases of the Beta B.1.351 variant and so the total case count in the province remains at 1,493.

In addition, the province also found one new case of the Gamma P.1 variant, which brings its total number of cases to 5,164.

As for the Delta variant, also known as the B.1.617 variant, officials reported 25 new cases of the strain, which brings the total number in the province to 4,909.

MORE THAN 9.1M PEOPLE FULLY VACCINATED IN ONTARIO

The province reports that 9,143,402 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 60,094 doses of the vaccine were administered to Ontario residents.

Just over 19.6 million vaccine doses have been administered in the province since the rollout began last year.

Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore told reporters at a news conference Tuesday that vaccines are proving effective in reducing the spread of COVID-19 in Ontario.

He says since Dec. 14, 2020, unvaccinated cases of COVID-19 accounted for 95.4 per cent of COVID-19 cases, with breakthrough cases accounting for 0.5 per cent.

In the last month, Kieran added that people who were unvaccinated were approximately eight times more likely to be infected with COVID-19 compared to fully vaccinated people.