Ontario's COVID-19 ICU admissions drop to 119, lowest level since August

The number of patients in an Ontario intensive care unit has dropped to 119 -- the lowest level recorded since last summer.

The last time ICU admissions were this low was on August 16 when the same number of patients was recorded.

Data released Thursday shows that hospitalizations related to the virus also decreased overnight to 670 from the 722 reported a day earlier.

Of the patients currently in hospital, 408 are fully vaccinated, 85 are unvaccinated, and 27 are partially vaccinated. No other vaccination information was released.

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Incidental hospitalizations account for 58 per cent of those currently receiving care, meaning those patients were admitted for a reason unrelated to COVID-19 but have since tested positive. The remaining 42 per cent were admitted to hospital due to their COVID-19 diagnosis.

In the ICU, 58 patients are fully vaccinated, nine are unvaccinated, and six are partially vaccinated. The vaccination status of the outstanding patients in intensive care was not disclosed.

Most of the patients in the ICU are there due to their COVID-19 infection at 69 per cent while 31 per cent are considered incidental.

COVID-19 testing in Ontario remains limited to select high-risk groups and only 10,783 swabs were processed in the last 24-hour period.

Through those tests, 1,038 cases of the virus were identified, though that number is a significant undercount of the actual number of cases in the province.

The Ministry of Health said that Ontario’s COVID-19 positivity rate is currently 7.2 per cent, a number that has also been gradually decreasing over several weeks.

Another two deaths due to COVID-19 were recorded since Wednesday and push the province’s death toll to 13,267.

Since the start of the pandemic, Ontario has seen 1,305,101 lab-confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, including 1,282,296 recoveries.