Ontario COVID-19 hospitalizations decrease to 717, ICU admissions also continue to drop

LIVE: Alberta health-care restructure update Health Minister Adriana LaGrange will give an update on Alberta's health-care system restructure, live at 9 a.m. MT.

Both hospitalizations and ICU admissions linked to COVID-19 in Ontario decreased on Friday, with 717 people being treated for the disease.

Of those patients in hospital, 46 per cent were admitted due to the virus while 54 per cent tested positive after the fact. At least 378 of those patients are fully vaccinated, 154 are unvaccinated, and 30 are partially vaccinated.

On Wednesday, the province announced it was changing the way it reports COVID-19 deaths.

Starting Friday, the Ministry of Health said it would start breaking down deaths into three categories: whether COVID-19 contributed to a death, whether COVID-19 caused a death, or if the cause of death is unknown or missing from provincial data. However, it appears that none of that information was made available by the government Friday.

On Thursday, 489 previously reported deaths linked to COVID-19 were identified as incidental and removed from the province's tally. The new data shows that Ontario has recorded 12,227 deaths due to COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic, with 78 more deaths being reported on Friday.

The net change in deaths is not available today due to the planned change in reporting methods.

In the ICU, 238 individuals are currently receiving care -- down by six patients over Thursday’s data -- 76 per cent of whom are being treated for COVID-19 and 24 per cent who were admitted for other reasons but have since tested positive. Of those patients, 73 are fully vaccinated, 47 are unvaccinated, and four are partially vaccinated.

At least 2,130 cases of COVID-19 were recorded in the last 24 hours amid limited access to testing across the province.

Those cases were identified through 14,571 tests which the province said generated a positivity rate of 11.7 per cent.

WHERE ARE THE NEW COVID-19 CASES IN ONTARIO?

According to the province, most of the cases reported on Friday were found in Toronto (304), Peel Region (119), York (104), Ottawa (117), Durham (135) and Hamilton (122).

Other areas with relatively high COVID-19 case counts include Halton (82), Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington (88), Middlesex-London (85), Niagara (91), Simcoe-Muskoka (100) and Windsor-Essex (87).

ONTARIO VACCINATIONS

Health Minister Christine Elliott said Friday 92.7 per cent of Ontarians over the age of 12 have received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 90.7 per cent have received two doses.

More than 31,850,821 needles have gone into arms in Ontario, including 15,097 jabs that were administered on Thursday.