TORONTO -- Ontario health officials are reporting more than 3,000 new COVID-19 cases and 47 additional deaths related to the disease, which marks the highest death tally since mid-February.
The province confirmed 3,216 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Sunday, which comes after a single-day drop in cases on Saturday when officials logged 2,864 new infections.
Ontario’s rolling seven-day average now stands at 3,120, down from 3,587 at this point last week.
The positivity rate in the province rose slightly on Sunday. With 38,540 tests processed in the last 24 hours, the positivity rate increased from 6.8 per cent to 7.1 per cent.
Including the 47 additional COVID-19-realted deaths, the province has seen 8,308 people die due to the novel coronavirus since the start of the pandemic. The last time the province saw 47 or more deaths in a 24-hour period was Feb. 19.
There are currently more than 1,640 people in hospital due to COVID-19 as officials noted that not all hospitals submitted their data this weekend. At least 848 of these patients are in intensive care and 580 are breathing with the assistance of a ventilator.
The province deemed 3,653 more cases of the disease to be resolved as of Sunday, bringing Ontario’s number of recovered patients up to 451,591.
Sunday’s report brings the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Ontario to 492,303, 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 903 new cases in Toronto, 752 new cases in Peel Region and 335 new cases in York Region.
Several other regions reported new infection totals in the triple digits, including, Durham Region (187), Ottawa (150), Hamilton (113), Niagara Region (104) and Middlesex-London (101).
The Ontario government entered a provincewide stay-at-home order last month in order to curb the spread of the deadly disease. The order is expected to last at least until May 20.
Variants in Ontario
The province reported 2,010 new cases of the B.1.1.7 (U.K. variant) in Ontario on Sunday. The total case count for the strain now stands at 91,624.
Officials identified five new cases of the B.1.351 (South African variant), bringing total case count in the province to 400.
In addition, the province added 17 more cases of the P.1 (Brazilian variant), which brings its total number of cases to 1,229.
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 392K people fully vaccinated in Ontario
The province reports that 392,835 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 121,075 doses of the vaccine were administered to residents in the province.
The province has repeatedly said they have the capacity to administer about 150,000 vaccines a day.
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.
