Ontario reports under 300 new COVID-19 cases for 1st time since early August | Globalnews.ca

Ontario is reporting 269 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, the smallest increase in cases since early August. The provincial case total now stands at 598,110.

For comparison, last Tuesday saw 328 new cases with the previous Tuesday at 390 showing a week-over-week drop. On Monday there were 326 new cases, 370 on Sunday, and 373 on Saturday.

Of the 269 new cases recorded, the data showed 142 were unvaccinated people, 11 were partially vaccinated people, 93 were fully vaccinated people and for 23 people the vaccination status was unknown.

According to Tuesday’s report, 39 cases were recorded in Toronto, 36 in Peel Region, 27 in Windsor-Essex, 21 in Niagara Region and 19 in Southwestern.

All other local public health units reported fewer than 15 new cases in the provincial report.

The death toll in the province has remained at 9,852 as six new deaths were recorded, with one death having occurred more than a month ago.

Vaccinations, recoveries, testing, 7-day average in Ontario

As of 8 p.m. on Monday, 18,428 vaccines (6,459 for a first shot and 11,969 for a second shot) were administered in the last day.

There are more than 10.9 million people fully immunized with two doses, which is 84 per cent of the eligible (12 and older) population. First dose coverage stands at 87.9 per cent.

Meanwhile, 585,207 Ontario residents were reported to have recovered from COVID-19, which is about 98 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 427 from the previous day.

Active cases in Ontario now stand at 3,051 — down from the previous day when it was at 3,215, and is down from Oct. 19 when it was at 3672. At the peak of the second wave coronavirus surge in January, active cases hit just above 30,000. In the third wave in April, active cases topped 43,000.

The seven-day average has now reached 364, which is down from the week prior when it was 407. A month ago, the seven-day average was around 600.

The government said 21,827 tests were processed in the previous 24 hours. There are 14,276 tests currently under investigation.

Test positivity hit 1.5 per cent. Last week, test positivity was also at 1.5 per cent.

Hospitalizations in Ontario

Ontario reported 233 people in general hospital wards with COVID-19 (up by 70 from the previous day) with 138 patients in intensive care units (unchanged) and 107 patients in intensive care units on a ventilator (down by two).

In the third wave peak, which was the worst wave for hospitalizations, the province saw as many as 900 patients in ICUs with COVID and almost 2,400 in general hospital wards.

Provincial officials announced they would start including the vaccination status of those hospitalized due to COVID-19 as part of their daily COVID-19 data reporting. They noted the new dataset will grow and improve over time as more information is collected. There may be a discrepancy due to how and when the information for both is collected.

For those in general hospital wards with COVID, 107 were unvaccinated, 14 were partially vaccinated and 30 were fully vaccinated. For those in ICUs, 62 were unvaccinated while 5 were partially vaccinated and 17 were fully vaccinated.

Variants of concern in Ontario

Officials have listed breakdown data for the new VOCs (variants of concern) detected so far in the province which consists of:

“Alpha” the B.1.1.7 VOC (first detected in the United Kingdom): 146,503 variant cases, which is up by 3 since the previous day. This strain dominated Ontario’s third wave.

“Delta” the B.1.617.2 VOC (first detected in India): 20,611 variant cases, which is up by 121 since the previous day. This strain is dominating Ontario’s fourth wave.

“Beta” the B.1.351 VOC (first detected in South Africa): 1,503 variant cases, which is unchanged since the previous day.

“Gamma” the P.1 VOC (first detected in Brazil): 5,231 variant cases, which is up by 1 since the previous day.

NOTE: It takes several days for positive COVID-19 tests to be re-examined for the exact variant. Therefore, there may be more variant cases than overall cases in daily reporting.

More to come.

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