Ontario reports more than 500 new cases COVID-19 for fifth straight day

TORONTO -

Ontario health officials are reporting more than 500 new cases of COVID-19 for the fifth straight day.

The province confirmed 526 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Monday, which comes after officials reported 511 on Sunday, 578 on Saturday, 510 on Friday and 513 on Thursday.

Before Thursday, the province had not reported more than 500 cases since June 13 when 530 new cases were logged.

Ontario’s rolling seven-day average now stands at 469, up from 283 at this point last week. The seven-day average has been climbing steadily for several days.

With 15,784 tests processed in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health says the positivity rate in the province stands at 2.7 per cent.

The province recorded no new deaths on Monday, keeping the total death tally in the province at 9,418.

The province deemed 321 more cases of the disease to be resolved as of Monday, bringing Ontario’s number of recovered patients up to 542,797.

Today’s report brings the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Ontario to 542,797, including deaths and recoveries.

WHERE ARE THE COVID-19 CASES IN ONTARIO

In the Greater Toronto Area, officials reported 128 new cases in Toronto, 83 new cases in Peel Region, 66 new cases in York Region, 17 new cases in Durham Region and 10 new cases in Halton Region.

Officials also reported 52 new cases in Hamilton, 46 new cases in Windsor, 20 new cases in Ottawa and Middlesex-London, 18 new cases in Simcoe Muskoka, 14 new cases in Waterloo,11 new cases in Niagara and 10 new cases in Halton.

All other regions reported fewer than 10 new cases of the virus.

Ontario is currently in Step 3 of its reopening plan. The province is operating under the loosest set of public health restrictions observed in months.

VARIANTS OF CONCERN IN ONTARIO UPDATE

The province detected several more cases of variants of concern on Monday. Officials are analyzing cases on an ongoing basis to detect mutations and variants of concerns.

The province confirmed an additional four new cases of Alpha B.1.1.7 on Monday. The total case count for the strain now stands at 145,692.

Officials identified no new cases of the Beta B.1.351 variant and so the total case count in the province remains at 1,493.

In addition, the province also found one new case of the Gamma P.1 variant, which brings its total number of cases to 5,178.

As for the Delta variant, also known as the B.1.617 variant, officials reported 63 new cases of the strain, which brings the total number in the province to 6,245.

MORE THAN 9.5M PEOPLE FULLY VACCINATED IN ONTARIO

The province reports that 9,583,506 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 26,033 doses of the vaccine were administered to Ontario residents.

Just over 20.2 million vaccine doses have been administered in the province since the rollout began last year.