Ontario logs 780 new COVID-19 cases as seven-day average continues to rise

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TORONTO — Health officials reported an additional 780 new COVID-19 cases in Ontario on Wednesday, as well as six more deaths related to the disease.

For the most part, Ontario has seen more than 700 infections daily over the last week, with Tuesday being the exception with 687 cases.

There were 788 COVID-19 cases reported Monday, 964 on Sunday and 854 on Saturday.

As a result, Ontario's seven-day rolling average of daily infections continues to rise, standing at about 821 on Wednesday. This represents a significant increase from the previous week when that number was 692.

The last time the seven-day average was this high was on June 4.

With just over 35,300 tests processed in the last 24 hours, the province's positivity rate is about 3.1 per cent.

Six deaths were logged in the last 24 hours, but provincial officials say that one death was also removed from the total count due to data cleaning, bringing the tally to 10,005.

There are currently at least 155 people being treated for COVID-19 in intensive care units. Health Minister Christine Elliott says that of those patients, 133 are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status.

Other vaccination data is not available today due to technical difficulties, the province said.

There have been 619,270 lab-confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in Ontario since the beginning of the pandemic, including deaths and recoveries.

WHERE ARE THE COVID-19 CASES?

The public health units reporting the highest number of COVID-19 infections on Wednesday include Toronto (98), Windsor-Essex (88) and Simcoe-Muskoka (64).

According to the province's epidemiology report, there were 56 cases in Sudbury and it's districts, 44 in Ottawa, 43 in Waterloo, 37 in Durham Region, 33 in Hamilton and 32 in Kingston.

All other municipalities reported fewer than 30 infections.

The data shows that 180 COVID-19 cases were logged in people under the age of 12, with an additional 61 infections in people between the ages of 12 and 19.

On Wednesday, officials logged 185 school-related cases. Of those infections, 167 were identified in students. Thirteen schools in Ontario are closed as a result of COVID-19.

Forty-three cases were confirmed in child-care centres and homes in Ontario, with 32 infections logged in children. Fifteen facilities are closed.

There were 214 cases in people between the ages of 20 and 39, and 200 infections in people between the ages of 40 and 59.

There are 125 cases in seniors over the age of 60.

As of Tuesday, four cases of the new Omicron variant have been identified in Ontario. Canada is imposing new testing requirements on all air travellers coming from outside of Canada in an effort to curb the spread of the B.1.1.529 variant.