Ontario reports more than 300 new COVID-19 cases over two days

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TORONTO — Ontario health officials are reporting 332 new COVID-19 cases for the past two days.

The province confirmed 164 new cases of the novel coronavirus for Tuesday and 168 for Monday. Officials had not released a daily case count yesterday due to the civic holiday.

Before Monday, the province reported more than 200 new cases daily for four days straight.

Ontario’s rolling seven-day average now stands at 201, up from 157 at this point last week.

With 11,515 tests processed in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health says the positivity rate in the province stands at 1.3 per cent.

The province recorded two new death related to the disease, bringing the total death tally in the province to 9,349.

There are at least 106 patients in intensive care in Ontario hospitals and 78 are breathing with the assistance of a ventilator.

The province deemed 280 more cases of the disease to be resolved as of Tuesday, bringing Ontario’s number of recovered patients up to 539,920.

Monday and Tuesday’s report brings the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Ontario to 550,986, including deaths and recoveries.

WHERE ARE THE COVID-19 CASES IN ONTARIO

Today, officials reported 45 new cases in Toronto, 23 new cases in York Region, and 22 new cases in Peel Region. Officials also reported 14 new cases in Waterloo region and 13 new cases in Windsor.

All other regions outside of the GTA reported fewer than 10 new cases of the disease.

Ontario is currently in Step 3 of its reopening plan, which has seen the province operating under the loosest set of public health restrictions observed in months. In order to move to a complete reopening, the province has set certain targets.

VARIANTS OF CONCERN IN ONTARIO UPDATE

The province detected several more cases of variants of concern on Monday and Tuesday. Officials are analyzing cases on an ongoing basis to detect mutations and variants of concerns.

The province confirmed an additional five new cases of Alpha B.1.1.7 on Tuesday. The total case count for the strain now stands at 145,536.

Officials identified no new cases of the Beta B.1.351 variant and so the total case count in the province stood at to 1,493.

In addition, the province also found no new cases of the Gamma P.1 variant, which keeps its total number of cases at 5,163

As for the Delta variant, also known as the B.1.617 variant, officials reported 68 new cases of the strain, which brings the total number in the province to 4,884.

MORE THAN 9M PEOPLE FULLY VACCINATED IN ONTARIO

The province reports that 9,095,394 people in Ontario have received both doses of a COVID-19 vaccine and are now considered fully vaccinated against the disease.

In the last 24-hour period, officials said 31,015 doses of the vaccine were administered to Ontario residents.

Just over 19.5 million vaccine doses have been administered in the province since the rollout began last year.

Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore told reporters at a news conference on Tuesday that vaccines are proving effective in reducing the spread of COVID-19 in Ontario.

He says since Dec. 14, 2020, unvaccinated cases of COVID-19 accounted for 95.4 per cent of COVID-19 cases, with breakthrough cases accounting for 0.5 per cent.

Kieran added that in the last month, people who were unvaccinated were approximately eight times more likely to be infected with COVID-19 compared to fully vaccinated people.

“This shows how well vaccination is protecting people in Ontario from COVID-19,” he said. “Unvaccinated adults 60 years of age and older were approximately 15 times more likely to be hospitalized due to COVID-19, compared to fully vaccinated adults.”

“I would like to both congratulate and thank all Ontarians who have gotten vaccinated and helped us move forward on our journey towards a new normal.”