Ontario reports nearly 800 new COVID-19 cases

TORONTO -

Ontario health officials are reporting nearly 800 new cases of COVID-19, marking the highest daily case count since early June.

The province confirmed 781 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Friday, which comes after officials reported 678 infections on Thursday and 660 infections on Wednesday.

The province noted that 22 of the reported cases today are not recent, but have been added to Friday’s total due to a data clean up.

Today’s daily case count, even without the 22 dated cases, is the highest number of new infections in a single day since June 4 when officials logged 914 cases.

Ontario’s rolling seven-day average now stands at 665, up from 518 at this point last week.

With 30,063 tests processed in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health says the positivity rate in the province rose to three per cent.

Of the new infections reported Friday, 634 cases involved people who are either unvaccinated, partially vaccinated or their vaccination status is unknown. The remaining 147 infections involved people who are fully vaccinated.

The province recorded 17 new deaths on Friday, bringing the total death tally in the province to 9,489. Fourteen of the deaths reported today occurred more than two months ago, the Ministry of Health said. The deaths are being reported as part of a data catch-up.

The province stated at least 306 people are in hospital due to COVID-19, including 27 people who are fully vaccinated and 279 people who are either not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status.

At least 158 of those patients are in intensive care in Ontario hospitals and 87 are breathing with the assistance of a ventilator.

The province deemed 625 more cases of the disease to be resolved as of Friday, bringing Ontario’s number of recovered patients up to 547,823.

Today’s report brings the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Ontario to 562,756, 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 185 new cases in Toronto, 96 new cases in Peel Region, 93 new cases in York Region and 40 new cases in Durham Region.

Officials also reported 67 new cases in Windsor-Essex, 66 new cases in Hamilton and 33 new cases each in Ottawa and Simcoe Muskoka. All other regions reported fewer than 30 new cases of the disease.

Ontario is currently in Step 3 of its reopening plan. Last week, health officials said the province is putting the brakes on any further reopening ahead of a "difficult fall and winter" due to the Delta variant.

Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore said on Tuesday that Ontario will likely experience waves of COVID-19 for the next six to eight months and it will only stop if the vaccination rate reaches at least 90 per cent.

VARIANTS OF CONCERN IN ONTARIO UPDATE

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

The province confirmed an additional 80 new cases of Alpha B.1.1.7 on Friday. The total case count for the strain now stands at 146,105.

Officials identified no new cases of the Beta B.1.351 variant and so the total case count in the province stood at 1,500.

In addition, the province also found one new case of the Gamma P.1 variant, which brings its total number of cases to 5,222.

As for the Delta variant, also known as the B.1.617 variant, officials reported 486 new cases of the strain, which brings the total number in the province to 8,732.

MORE THAN 9.8M PEOPLE FULLY VACCINATED IN ONTARIO

The province reports that 9,867,920 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 36,195 doses of the vaccine were administered to Ontario residents.

Just over 20.6 million vaccine doses have been administered in the province since the rollout began last year.