Ontario reports significant jump in COVID-19 hospitalizations, nine new deaths

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Ontario health officials are reporting 790 people in hospital with COVID-19 Tuesday, including 165 patients in intensive care.

Tuesday’s hospitalizations case count marks a considerable increase over the 655 reported on Monday and the 553 reported on Sunday, although not all hospitals report patient data over the weekends.

Of Tuesday’s hospitalizations, 153 patients are unvaccinated and 470 are fully vaccinated. The vaccination status of the remaining patients is unknown.

Forty-seven per cent of patients being treated for COVID-19 in hospital Tuesday were admitted for COVID-19, while 53 per cent tested positive after an unrelated admission. In ICUs, those percentages are 72 per cent and 28 per cent, respectively.

Of Ontario patients currently being treated for COVID-19 in ICUs, 23 are unvaccinated and 61 are fully vaccinated. The vaccination status of the remaining patients is unknown.

Officials reported nine new deaths due to COVID-19 Tuesday. They said seven of the deaths occurred over the past 30 days, while two of them took place over a month ago.

Since the start of the pandemic, 12,414 individuals have lost their lives due to the disease.

The province reported 1,610 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, but health officials have warned that number is an underestimate due to testing limitations and backlogs.

Wastewater data, provided by Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Table, appears to confirm this slight increase in infection. In nearly every region in the province the concentration of the disease in wastewaters has started to rise.

With 12,302 tests processed in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health says the province's positivity rate is about 14.4 per cent.

The province deemed 1,683 more cases of the disease to be resolved as of Tuesday, bringing Ontario's number of recovered patients up to 1,124,888.

Today's report brings the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Ontario to 1,156,656.