Ontario COVID-19 cases dip below 500 for second straight day

Ontario eager for reopening day on Friday As COVID-19 cases decline in Ontario, business owners are eager to accelerate Step 1 of the reopening plan.

TORONTO — Ontario’s daily COVID-19 case count has dipped below the 500 mark for the second day in a row.

Health officials logged 411 new infections on Wednesday, as well as 33 deaths related to the novel coronavirus.

The Ministry of Health has stated that of the 33 new deaths reported, 11 actually occurred in either April or May.

Before Tuesday, the last time the case count was this low was on Sept. 26, 2020, when 435 COVID-19 cases were reported.

Wednesday also marks the 10th day in a row in which Ontario’s daily case count has been below 1,000.

The seven-day rolling average of daily reported COVID-19 cases continues to decline and now stands at about 657 down from 978 a week ago.

There are 571 people being treated for the novel coronavirus in Ontario hospitals. At least 466 of those patients are in intensive care.

With 30,456 tests processed in the last 24-hour period, the Ministry of Health says the province’s positivity rate now stands at 2.0 per cent. The is the lowest reported positivity rate since February.

The decline in COVID-19 cases over the past week resulted in an earlier reopening for Ontario, with the government announcing Monday that the province would move into Step 1 three days earlier.

WHERE ARE THE COVID-19 CASES?

The majority of cases are found in Toronto (97), Peel Region (72), Waterloo (35) and York Region (26).

According to the province’s epidemiology report, 902 of the B.1.1.7. variant were identified in lab-positive tests in the previous 24-hours. These new cases bring the total number of B.1.1.7. variants in Ontario to 134,608.

The province also identified an additional 64 cases of the P.1. variant.

Ontario is not publicly reporting cases of the B.1.617 variant originally found in India.

MORE THAN 1.2 MILLION PEOPLE FULLY VACCINATED

The province administered just over 177,506 vaccine doses in the last 24-hour period.

In total, over 10.4 million vaccine doses have made it into the arms of Ontarians. Just over 1.2 million people have received two shots and are considered fully vaccinated.