Ontario logs more than 300 new COVID-19 cases for 5th straight day

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.

TORONTO — For the fifth day in a row, Ontario has logged more than 300 COVID-19 cases.

Health officials reported 321 new infections on Tuesday, a decrease from the 325 cases recorded Monday, the 423 cases on Sunday and the 378 on Saturday.

The rolling seven-day average of daily COVID-19 infections has jumped significantly in the last week to about 306. Last Tuesday that number stood at 198.

With just under 16,500 COVID-19 tests processed in the last 24-hour period, the Ministry of Health says that province’s positivity rate is now about 1.7 per cent.

The majority of the new infections were found in the Greater Toronto Area. According to the province’s epidemiology report, Toronto is reporting 96 cases, Peel Region is reporting 31 cases and York Region is reporting 30 new cases.

Other municipalities reporting more than 10 new COVID-19 cases includes Hamilton (31), Windsor-Essex (22), Halton (16), Middlesex-London (17), Simcoe Muskoka (15), and Waterloo (10).

An additional two deaths were also reported on Tuesday, bringing the total death toll related to COVID-19 in Ontario to 9,409.

According to provincial data, there are 109 people being treated for COVID-19 in Ontario intensive care units. Of those patients, 72 are breathing with the assistance of a ventilator.

The total number of lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 now stands at 553,125, including deaths and recoveries.

NEW DATA RELEASED ON VACCINATION STATUS

On Tuesday, the government updated their publicly available data to indicate how many cases and hospitalizations were in vaccinated, partially vaccinated, and unvaccinated individuals.

“As Dr. Kieran Moore said, thanks to the many Ontarians who got their COVID-19 vaccine, growing case counts will not mean the same thing as before. Hospitalizations and ICU admissions will be especially critical in monitoring Ontario’s COVID-19 response,” Health Minister Christine Elliott said on Twitter.

“That is why, starting today, we are updating our reporting to focus on the key indicators to be monitored as we head into the fall. This includes the vaccination status of COVID-19 cases and patients in hospital and ICU due to COVID-19.”

The data released at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday appears to be incomplete, with numerous notices at the bottom of the page warning the data “may not match the daily COVID-19 case count because records with a missing or invalid health card number cannot be linked.”

It also says that there may be a discrepancy in the hospital data as the information was collected using a new process.

“The data quality will continue to improve as hospitals continue to submit data,” the website says.

According to Tuesday’s provincial data, about 67 per cent of people with COVID-19 were unvaccinated. Fourteen per cent contracted COVID-19 after receiving one dose or within 14 days of their second dose and 20 per cent were in fully vaccinated individuals.

The hospitalization data released online has a noticeable discrepancy. The data shows that 28 people in hospital due to COVID-19 are unvaccinated, 20 partially vaccinated and 13 fully vaccinated.

Of those in the ICU, the province has identified nine people who are unvaccinated, four partially vaccinated and three who are fully vaccinated.

CTV News Toronto has asked repeatedly for clarity on the discrepancy but aside from the disclaimers on the website, were provided with no further information.

In the last 24-hour period, a little more than 48,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered to Ontario residents. More than 9.3 million people in the province are considered fully vaccinated with both doses.