Ontario's COVID-19 case count crosses 600,000 as province logs 422 new infections

TORONTO -

Health officials in Ontario are reporting 422 new cases of COVID-19, pushing the province's lab-confirmed case total past 600,000.

Monday’s report brings the seven-day average for the number of cases reported in the province to 362. A week ago, that number was 372.

Ontario has seen 600,377 infections of the novel coronavirus since the onset of the pandemic, including 587,344 recoveries and 9,874 deaths – three of which were reported today but actually occurred in September.

With 19,840 tests processed across the province in the last 24 hours, the Ministry of Health said that Ontario’s COVID-19 positivity rate stands at 1.8 per cent.

Health Minister Christine Elliott said that of the cases reported today, 261 involve individuals who are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status while the remaining 161 cases are in fully vaccinated individuals.

Right now, there are 134 people in hospital with COVID-19, including 133 people who are currently being treated in an ICU. The vaccination status of those hospitalized has not been made available.

Where are the new COVID-19 cases?

The province said that most of the infections reported Monday were found in Toronto (61), Peel Region (47), and York Region (41).

Other areas that reported relatively high COVID-19 case counts include Ottawa (38), Simcoe-Muskoka (25), Sudbury (22), Southwestern Public Health (21), and Hamilton (20).

Meanwhile, 74 lab-confirmed cases have been reported across Ontario’s 4,844 schools. At least 68 of those cases involve students and six involve staff members. There are 515 schools with a reported case and three facilities are closed as a result.

Labs also confirmed 59 additional cases of the COVID-19 Delta variant B.1.617.2 in the last 24-hour period. So far, Ontario has seen 21,196 cases of the strain.

As well, two more cases of the Alpha variant B.1.1.7 were also confirmed following genomic sequencing. There are 146,507 confirmed infections of the Alpha strain in the province. 

Update on vaccinations

As of Monday, the province said that nearly 88.2 per cent of Ontarians over the age of 12 had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

The government said that 84.5 per cent have two doses and are considered to be fully vaccinated.

Throughout the province’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign, 22,522,144 needles have gone into arms provincewide.