Ontario reports total of 613 people in hospital with COVID-19, including 185 in ICU

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.

Ontario health officials report there are currently 613 people in hospital with COVID-19, including 185 patients in intensive care.

The province released the latest numbers on Saturday. They mark a small decrease over the 615 hospitalizations and 193 ICU total from the day before.

The province said that 59 of the people in ICU are fully vaccinated, 32 are unvaccinated and five are partially vaccinated. The remaining 89 have an unknown vaccination status.

According to data released by the Ontario Science Table on Friday, which takes into account population sizes, people who are fully vaccinated with at least two doses are 80.4 per cent less likely to end up in hospital and 88.3 per cent less likely to end up in ICU compared to people who are unvaccinated.

Officials also reported 16 more deaths due to COVID-19. Since the start of the pandemic, 12,329 people have lost their lives due to the disease.

The province reported 2,078 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, but health officials have warned that number is an underestimate due to testing limitations and backlogs.

With 12,180 tests processed in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health says the province's positivity rate is about 13.3 per cent.

In the Greater Toronto Area, officials reported 378 new cases in Toronto, 120 new cases in Peel Region, 105 new cases in York Region, 92 new cases in Durham Region and 69 new cases in Halton Region.

Officials also reported 210 new cases in the Northwestern Health Unit area, 123 new cases in Simcoe Muskoka and 101 new cases in Ottawa. All other regions reported fewer than 100 new cases on Saturday.

The province deemed 1,704 more cases of the disease to be resolved as of Saturday, bringing Ontario's number of recovered patients up to 1,107,840.

Today's report brings the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Ontario to 1,136,521.

The province reported 58 resident cases and 23 staff cases in long-term care settings across Ontario. Six of the 16 deaths reported on Saturday involved residents of long-term care. Officials said that at least 55 long-term care homes are currently dealing with an outbreak.