Ontario reports 642 new cases of COVID-19, seven-day average climbs

Various reasons for Ontario's COVID-19 case surge Whether it be low vaccination rates or localized outbreaks, the reasons behind the latest COVID-19 case surge in Ontario varies.

TORONTO — Health officials in Ontario are reporting the highest number of new COVID-19 cases since early October.

Labs confirmed 642 new infections of the novel coronavirus on Thursday, marking the highest number of cases logged in a single day since Oct. 9 when 654 were found.

Meanwhile, the seven-day rolling average for COVID-19 cases in Ontario sits at 532, up from 383 a week ago.

With 29,814 tests processed in the last 24 hours, the Ministry of Health said that Ontario’s COVID-19 positivity rate is about 2.1 per cent.

Of the 642 cases reported on Thursday, 334 involve individuals who are not vaccinated, 18 who are partially vaccinated, 245 who are fully vaccinated, and 45 patients whose vaccination status is unknown.

In Ontario hospitals there are 168 patients, of which 89 are unvaccinated, 15 are partially vaccinated, and 64 are fully vaccinated.

Admissions to ICUs across the province include 62 patients who are not vaccinated, four who are partially vaccinated, and 18 who are fully vaccinated.

Thursday’s report brings the total number of lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ontario to 605,248, including 591,063 recoveries and 9,916 deaths—five of which were reported since yesterday. The province said that the deaths reported today occurred in the last month and that one death was removed from the cumulative total due to "data cleaning."

WHERE ARE THE NEW COVID-19 CASES?

According to government data, most of the cases reported Thursday were found in Toronto (74), York Region (62), and Peel Region (61).

Other areas that reported relatively high case counts include Windsor-Essex (48), Ottawa (39), Sudbury (29), Waterloo (26), and Kingston (25).

There were 81 additional cases found in Ontario’s schools in the last 24 hours. Seventy-two of those cases involve students, while eight involve staff members. The remaining one case was not identified.

Of the province’s 4,844 schools, 501 have at least one confirmed case and two schools are closed as a result.

At the same time, 34 more cases of the COVID-19 Delta variant known as B.1.617.2 were found, bringing the total number of cases to 22,007.

UPDATE ON COVID-19 VACCINATIONS

Health Minister Christine Elliott said that a total of 22,668,228 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered throughout the province’s vaccination campaign.

Close to 88.6 per cent of Ontario’s eligible population has received one shot and nearly 85.3 per cent has received two doses and is considered to be fully vaccinated.