Ontario reports just over 700 new COVID-19 cases, 11 more deaths

TORONTO -

Ontario health officials are reporting just over 700 new COVID-19 cases, as well as 11 more deaths due to the disease.

The province confirmed 727 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Friday, which comes after four days of case counts below the 700 mark.

Ontario’s rolling seven-day average now stands at 655, down from 724 at this point last week.

With 36,855 tests processed in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health says the positivity rate in the province fell to 1.8 per cent.

Of the new infections reported Friday, 557 cases involved people who are either unvaccinated, partially vaccinated or their vaccination status is unknown. The remaining 170 infections involved people who are fully vaccinated.

The province recorded 11 new deaths on Friday, bringing the total death tally in the province to 9,688.

Officials say three of the 11 deaths happened more than one month ago and they added them to the cumulative count today due to a data cleaning.

The province stated at least 308 people are in hospital due to COVID-19, including 39 people who are fully vaccinated and 269 people who are either not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status.

At least 193 patients are in intensive care in Ontario hospitals and 134 are breathing with the assistance of a ventilator.

The province deemed 814 more cases of the disease to be resolved as of Friday, bringing Ontario’s number of recovered patients up to 567,200.

Today’s report brings the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Ontario to 582,635, including deaths and recoveries.

WHERE ARE THE NEW COVID-19 CASES IN ONTARIO

Most of the new cases were found in parts of the Greater Toronto Area. Officials reported 144 new cases in Toronto, 83 new cases in Peel Region, 54 new cases in York Region and 35 new cases in Durham Region.

Officials also reported 70 new cases in Ottawa, 66 new cases in Hamilton and 33 new cases in Middlesex-London. All other regions reported fewer than 30 new cases of the disease.

According to the province’s epidemiology report, of the 727 new infections reported on Friday, 143 cases were identified in children under the age of 12.

The province also recorded 81 cases in youth between the ages of 12 and 19 and another 252 cases in people between the ages of 20 and 39.

As well, officials found 177 cases in people between the ages of 40 and 59, 58 cases in people between the ages of 60 and 79 and 17 cases in people over the age of 80.

On Friday, officials reported 173 new cases in Ontario schools, including 145 cases involving students and 26 cases involving staff. The province said the remaining two cases were not identified.

The province reported that 750 out 4,844 schools have at least one case of COVID-19. Currently, one school is closed due to an outbreak.

Officials also reported an additional 98 cases of the Delta variant in lab-confirmed COVID-19 tests. This brings the total number of cases to 17,836.

MORE THAN 10.4M PEOPLE FULLY VACCINATED IN ONTARIO

The province reports that 10,406,874 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 46,550 doses of the vaccine were administered to Ontario residents.

Just over 21.5 million vaccine doses have been administered in the province since the rollout began last year.