Ontario's COVID-19 hospitalizations, positivity rate drop to levels not seen since last year, 17 deaths logged

Ontario’s COVID-19 hospitalizations and positivity rate have dropped to levels not seen since late December  as the province reports 17 new deaths due to the virus.

Ontario Minister of Health Christine Elliott said that 1,056 patients are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, although not all hospitals provide data on weekends.

In the ICU, 324 people with COVID-19 are seeking care – the lowest number of admissions since Jan. 6 when there were 319.

The province did not provide the data breaking down how many patients were admitted for COVID-19 and how many patients that were admitted for other reasons but tested positive for COVID-19 while in hospital on Sunday.

Ontario health officials are reporting 19 deaths related to COVID-19 that occured in the past thirty days. However, two deaths were removed from the database due to data cleaning, the ministry says, resulting in 17 net deaths.

Meanwhile, Ontario is reporting 1,966 new COVID-19 cases, but health officials have warned that number is a significant underestimate due to restricted testing.

Of the new cases confirmed Sunday, 285 are unvaccinated and 1,391 are fully vaccinated. The remaining 290 cases are in Ontarians who are either partially vaccinated or their vaccination status is unknown.

With 16,752 tests processed in the last 24-hours, Ontario is reporting a test positivity rate of 9.1 per cent.

The majority of infections were identified in the Greater Toronto Area. Officials are reporting 261 new cases in Toronto, 71 new cases in York Region, 174 new cases in Peel Region and 88 new cases in Durham Region.

The only other municipality with more than 100 new COVID-19 cases was Ottawa with 139 infections.

Due to the upcoming long weekend, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health said COVID-19 numbers will not be posted on Monday. Instead, that data will be available the following day.