TORONTO -- Ontario health officials are reporting fewer than 1,100 new cases of COVID-19 for the second day in a row.
The province confirmed 1,095 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Wednesday, which comes after officials reported 1,039 new cases on Tuesday.
Tuesday’s case count marked the lowest number of daily reported infections since the beginning of March.
Ontario’s rolling seven-day average now stands at 1,622, down from 2,183 at this point last week.
With 24,008 tests processed in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health says the positivity rate dropped slightly from 6.2 per cent on Tuesday to 5.3 per cent on Wednesday.
Health officials also reported that 23 more people have died due to COVID-19. In total, the province has seen 8,678 deaths related to the novel coronavirus.
There are currently 1,073 people in hospital due to the disease. At least 672 of these patients are in intensive care and 469 are breathing with the assistance of a ventilator.
The province deemed 2,371 more cases of the disease to be resolved as of Wednesday, bringing Ontario’s number of recovered patients up to 499,640.
Wednesday’s report brings the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Ontario to 526,045, including deaths and recoveries.
WHERE ARE THE COVID-19 CASES IN ONTARIO
Most of the new cases reported are concentrated in hot spot regions in the Greater Toronto Area. Officials reported 257 new cases in Toronto, 215 new cases in Peel Region, 123 in Durham Region and 101 new cases in York Region.
All other regions in the province reported fewer than 100 new cases.
The province reported 992 new cases of B.1.1.7 (U.K. variant) in Ontario on Wednesday. The total case count for the strain now stands at 121,122.
Officials identified 19 new cases of B.1.351 (South African variant), bringing the total case count in the province to 836.
In addition, the province added 43 more cases of P.1 (Brazilian variant), which brings its total number of cases to 2,505.
Ontario does not currently report how many cases of the B.1.617 variant, originally found in India, are found in the province.
MORE THAN 569K PEOPLE FULLY VACCINATED IN ONTARIO
The province reports that 569,317 people in Ontario have received both doses of a COVID-19 vaccine and are now considered vaccinated against the disease.
In the last 24-hour period, officials said that 135,308 doses of the vaccine were administered to residents in the province. Officials have repeatedly said they have the capacity to give about 150,000 vaccines a day.
A total of 8,386,950 vaccine doses have been administered in Ontario since the rollout began earlier this year.
Backstory:
The numbers used in this story are found in the Ontario Ministry of Health's COVID-19 Daily Epidemiologic Summary. The number of cases for any city or region may differ slightly from what is reported by the province, because local units report figures at different times
