Ontario reports more than 500 new cases of COVID-19 for fourth consecutive day

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TORONTO — For the fourth day in a row, Ontario is reporting more than 500 new COVID-19 infections across the province.

The 511 new cases logged Sunday mark a decrease over the 578 reported a day earlier, which was the highest single-day total documented since June 10.

Of the cases added today, 350 were recorded in individuals who are unvaccinated and 67 were in those partially vaccinated. The remaining 94 cases were found in fully vaccinated people.

Health Minister Christine Elliott said in a tweet that 98 people are currently in hospital with COVID-19 and 116 are being treated in intensive care. She said the discrepancy in patient data, as well as the absence of their vaccination status, is due to a delay in hospital reporting over the weekend.

Sunday’s report brings the total number of lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases in Ontario to 555,561. This number includes 542,476 recoveries and 9,418 deaths related to the disease. No news deaths were reported in the last 24-hour period.

Ontario’s seven-day average for the number of cases reported stands at 440. For context, last week that number was 261. A week before that, the average was 196.

The new cases were reported based on 19,192 tests, which the Ministry of Health says produced a positivity rate of 2.6 per cent.

Where are the new COVID-19 cases?

The province says most of the cases reported Sunday were found in Toronto (116), Peel Region (69), and York Region (64).

Other regions with double-digit COVID-19 case counts include Hamilton (48), Windsor-Essex (27), Waterloo (24), Halton Region (24), Middlesex-London (21), Niagara Region (20), Durham Region (17), and Ottawa (17).

The province has said it will move out of Step 3 of its reopening strategy and lift virtually all remaining public health restrictions once 80 per cent of eligible residents have one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 75 per cent have two doses.

As of today, roughly 81.5 per cent of all eligible Ontarians have received at least one dose and 73.3 per cent have received two doses, Elliott said.

Update on COVID-19 variants of concern

Ontario labs said they confirmed 85 additional cases of COVID-19 variants of concern in the last 24 hours.

Sixty-three of those cases were of the Delta variant B.1.617.2. The case total for the strain sits at 6,182.

Another 22 cases of the Alpha variant B.1.17 were also included in Sunday’s report, bringing the case total to 145,688.

No new cases of the Beta variant B.1.351 or Gamma variant P.1 were recorded.