Ontario reports fewer than 300 new COVID-19 cases, marking lowest single-day tally since September

TORONTO -

Ontario health officials are reporting fewer than 300 new cases of COVID-19, which marks the lowest daily total since September.

The province confirmed 296 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Tuesday. The last time Ontario had a daily case total below 300 was on Sept. 17 when officials logged 293 new infections.

Tuesday’s daily case count marked a significant drop from the 447 infections reported on Monday. Before that, the province recorded just over 500 cases for four days straight.

Ontario’s rolling seven-day average now stands at 478, down from 703 at this point last week.

With 17,162 tests processed in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health says the positivity rate in the province dropped from 2.8 per cent on Monday to 2.3 per cent on Tuesday.

The province also reported that 13 more people have died due to COVID-19 in the previous 24-hour period, bringing the total number of deaths to 8,974.

There are currently 433 people in hospital due to the disease. At least 382 patients are in intensive care and 215 are breathing with the assistance of a ventilator.

The province deemed 645 more cases of the disease to be resolved as of Tuesday, bringing Ontario’s number of recovered patients up to 526,440.

Tuesday’s report brings the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Ontario to 540,426, including deaths and recoveries.

WHERE ARE THE COVID-19 CASES IN ONTARIO

Many of the new COVID-19 cases reported are concentrated in hot spot regions in the Greater Toronto Area. Officials reported 60 new cases in Toronto, 62 new cases in Peel Region, 15 new cases in York Region and 12 new cases in Durham Region.

The province confirmed an additional 678 new cases of B.1.1.7 (U.K. variant) in Ontario on Tuesday. The total case count for the strain now stands at 140,618.

Officials identified no new cases of B.1.351 (South African variant), and so the total case count in the province remained at 1,137.

In addition, the province added two more cases of P.1 (Brazilian variant), which brings its total number of cases to 4,137.

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 2M PEOPLE FULLY VACCINATED IN ONTARIO

The province reports that 2,037,751 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 184,989 doses of the vaccine were administered to Ontario residents.

Just over 11.5 million vaccine doses have been administered in the province since the rollout began earlier this year.