Ontario reports more than 1,000 new COVID-19 cases for second day straight

Ontario is reporting more than 1,000 new COVID-19 cases for the second straight day as the number of infections in the province continues to rise.

Health officials confirmed 1,053 new COVID-19 cases in Ontario today, which is up slight from the 1,031 infections on Friday.

This past week, officials reported 788 new cases on Monday, 687 new cases on Tuesday, 780 new cases on Wednesday and 949 new cases on Thursday.

Saturday's case count is the highest in a single day since May 29, when 1,057 infections were reported. 

With 32,268 tests processed in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health says the positivity rate in the province stands at about 3.5 per cent.

Ontario's rolling seven-day average of COVID-19 cases now stands at 895, up from 729 at this point last week.

As of Saturday, Ontario had confirmed 12 cases of the Omicron variant in the province. The latest case is in a person from Hamilton who recently returned to the country after a trip to South Africa.

There were eight additional COVID-19-related deaths, pushing the total number of fatalities to 10,024. The Ministry of Health says seven of those deaths occured last month.

Of the cases on Saturday, 499 are in fully vaccinated people, 469 in unvaccinated people, 25 have received one dose and 60 have an unknown vaccination status. 

There were 139 new COVID-19 cases in Toronto, 101 new infections in Simcoe-Muskoka, 54 in York Region and Windsor-Essex, 45 in Middlesex-London, 30 in Halton Region and 29 in Durham Region.

There are currently 284 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 in Ontario. Of those, 220 are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status and 64 are fully vaccinated, the government says.

There are currently at least 160 people being treated for COVID-19 in Ontario intensive care units. 

Health officials have warned for months that cases would increase in the winter months as more people gather indoors. 

"Sadly, all modelling would predict this would slowly, steadily rise and increase over the coming months, including January and February," Chief Medical Officer of Heath Dr. Kieran Moore said in November.

He asked people to remain cautious until the weather warms up in the spring and more people become eligible for third vaccine doses to protect against COVID-19.