COVID-19 hospitalizations in Ontario increase to 779, ICU admissions stay under 250

CTV National News: Feds urges booster doses Public health officials urge people to get their boosters to combat the more contagious COVID-19 variants. Vanessa Lee reports.

Ontario health officials are reporting an increase in the number of patients in hospital with COVID-19 on Tuesday as ICU admissions related to the virus remain under 250 for the third straight day.

Right now, there are 779 patients in hospital with COVID-19, an increase of 86 patients overnight. Of those hospitalized, 44 per cent were admitted due to COVID-19 while 56 per cent tested positive after the fact.

At least 411 of those patients are fully vaccinated, 127 are unvaccinated, and 27 are partially vaccinated. The vaccination status of the remaining patients is unknown.

ICU admissions are down over Monday’s total with 246 patients currently receiving care. Of those patients, 82 per cent were admitted due to COVID-19 and 18 per cent were admitted for other reasons but have since tested positive.

Of those patients in the ICU, 68 are fully vaccinated, 50 are unvaccinated, and eight are partially vaccinated. No vaccination status information for the remaining patients was released by the government.

Meanwhile, the province is reporting 1,208 new cases of the virus, though that number is likely an underestimate due to limited access to testing.

Some 11,128 tests were performed in the last 24 hours, which the province said resulted in a positivity rate of 11.2 per cent.

Another 20 deaths linked to COVID-19 were also reported, all of which occurred in the last month. As well, three deaths that occurred more than one month ago were removed from the cumulative total based on a data cleaning, the Ministry of Health said.

Ontario has seen 1,115,492 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 throughout the pandemic, including 12,591 deaths and 1,086,664 recoveries.

WHERE ARE THE NEW COVID-19 CASES

According to the province, most of the cases reported Tuesday were found in Toronto (242), Ottawa (76), and Peel Region (76).

Other areas with relatively high case counts include Simcoe Muskoka (72), Windsor-Essex (56), and York Region (55).

UPDATE ON VACCINATIONS

As of Tuesday, 92.7 per cent of Ontarians over the age of 12 have one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 90.7 per cent have two doses and are considered to be fully vaccinated.

Since the beginning of the province’s vaccination campaign, 31,807,255 shots have gone into arms across Ontario and 9,737 doses were administered on Monday.