Ontario confirms 34 more COVID-19 deaths, ICU admissions continue to decline

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 is reporting 34 more COVID-19 related deaths on Saturday as the number of people being treated in intensive care continues to decline.

According to the province, there are 1,024 people being treated in Ontario hospitals with COVID-19. This represents a slight increase from a day earlier when officials reported the lowest count since late December.

Of those patients, about 46 per cent were admitted for COVID-19 specific reasons while about 54 per cent were being treated for other ailments and then tested positive for the virus.

The number of patients in intensive care has dropped to 284 as of Saturday. About 82 per cent of those patients were admitted due to COVID-19. The remaining tested positive after the fact.

Thirty-one more deaths, which occurred over the past month, were also confirmed in the last 24 hour period while three additional deaths were added to the cumulative case count, bringing the total number of COVID-19 deaths in Ontario since the beginning of the pandemic to 12,420.

Nine of the deaths confirmed Saturday were residents of long-term care.

The majority of deaths in Ontario have been in people over the age of 60. However, 890 were people between the ages of 40 and 59 and 140 were between the ages of 20 and 39.

Thirteen people under the age of 19 have died after contracting COVID-19.

With just over 16,000 COVID-19 tests processed in the last 24 hours, the Ministry of Health says the province’s positivity rate is about 10.7 per cent.

There are 2,338 more lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19, although this number is an underestimation due to the lack of testing in the province.

Of those cases, 75 were identified in health-care workers and 37 were in residents of long-term care.

According to the province’s epidemiology report, 345 infections were in Toronto while 187 were in Peel Region and 93 were in York Region.

Other municipalities reporting more than 100 COVID-19 cases include Ottawa (136) and Sudbury (111).

Nearly 90 per cent of Ontarians aged five and older have received one dose of COVID-19 vaccine while 85 per cent have received two doses.

About forty-nine per cent have gotten their booster shot.

The Ontario government has said it will lift further COVID-19 measures next week, lifting the requirement to show proof of vaccination as well as capacity limits for most settings outside of the health-care sector.

Mask mandates will remain in place but the government has said it may review these policies mid-month.