Ontario reports two new COVID-19 deaths as hospitalizations tick up
Ontario health officials are reporting two new COVID-19-related deaths Monday.
Both of the deaths occurred in the last month, bringing the total number of individuals who have died with the virus to 13,072.
Officials also reported 1,122 people in hospital with COVID-19 Monday, including 159 patients in intensive care, however these are likely an undercount as not all hospitals report data on weekends. Monday's hospitalizations mark an increase of eight patients over Sunday.
The Ministry of Health did not provide vaccination status data or a breakdown of admissions for Monday's hospitalizations, citing technical difficulties.
UHN infectious diseases specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch told CP24 Monday there are variety of factors contributing to the rapid decline in hospital burden caused by the Omicron subvariant BA.2.
“There’s lots of factors pushing those numbers lower,” he said. “There’s seasonal variation to this virus, it’s not everything but it is something. We’re entering a season where we’d expect lower respiratory viral infections. But of course there’s less people in indoor settings," adding that Omicron may just not as virulent as previous strains of the virus, and a large portion of Ontario’s population was infected in the last four to five months.
“There’s so much community level immunity from vaccination and prior infection.”
In the last 24 hours, provincial labs processed 8,132 tests, generating a positivity rate of at least 7.7 per cent.
The province is reporting 1,061 new cases of COVID-19, but health officials have warned that reported case numbers are also a significant underestimation due to testing limitations.
Today's report brings the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Ontario to 1,287,529.
Background
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.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Bodies found by U.S. authorities searching for missing B.C. kayakers
United States authorities who have been searching for a pair of missing kayakers from British Columbia since the weekend have recovered two bodies in the nearby San Juan Islands of Washington state.
Amid concerns over 'collateral damage' Trudeau, Freeland defend capital gains tax change
Facing pushback from physicians and businesspeople over the coming increase to the capital gains inclusion rate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his deputy Chrystia Freeland are standing by their plan to target Canada's highest earners.
'It's discriminatory': Individuals refused entry to Ontario legislature for wearing keffiyeh
Individuals being barred from entering Ontario’s legislature while wearing a keffiyeh say the garment is part of their cultural identity— and the only ones making it political are the politicians banning it.
BREAKING Mounties will not be charged in shooting death of B.C. Indigenous man
Three Mounties in British Columbia will not face charges in the killing of a 38-year-old Indigenous man on Vancouver Island in 2021.
Canada's favourite sport to watch is hockey, survey shows
The 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs have already delivered a fever level of fan excitement in Canada.
Douglas DC-4 plane with 2 people on board crashes into river outside Fairbanks, Alaska
A Douglas C-54 Skymaster airplane crashed into the Tanana River near Fairbanks on Tuesday, Alaska State Troopers said.
Tom Mulcair: Park littered with trash after 'pilot project' is perfect symbol of Trudeau governance
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
'It's just so hard to let it go': Umar Zameer still haunted by death of Toronto police officer
“It's just so hard to let it go. I mean, everyone is telling me, ‘you have to move on,’ but I know someone is not here [anymore]. So I don't know how I will move on." That’s what Umar Zameer, the man recently acquitted in the death of a Toronto police officer, told CTV News Toronto in a sit-down interview on Tuesday.
NASA hears from Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft from Earth, after months of quiet
NASA has finally heard back from Voyager 1 again in a way that makes sense. The most distant spacecraft from Earth hadn't sent home any understandable data since last November.