TORONTO – Two victims, which bring the total toll to 13,072, and 1,122 patients in Ontario hospitals: if the number of deaths is lower than usual, the same cannot be said of the hospitalizations that increased today compared to Sunday when the beds occupied by infected people were 1,024, that is almost 100 fewer. 

But we should remeber that the count on Monday is usually higher than on Sunday because many hospitals do not report their data during the weekend. However, the number of patients in intensive care remains low: 159 today , 151 Sunday.

Dr Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist at UHN, says there are a variety of factors contributing to the rapid decline in hospital burden caused by the sub-variant Omicron BA.2. “There are a lot of factors driving those numbers down,” he told CP24 today. “We are entering a season in which we would expect viral infections of the lower respiratory tract, but obviously there are fewer people indoors” and then anyway “Omicron is not as virulent as the previous variants of the virus” and “much of the population of the Ontario has been infected in the past four or five months, so there’s a lot of community-wide immunity from vaccination and previous infection. This variant can still be dangerous but is probably not as significant as the Delta or the Alpha. “

On the contagion front, Ontario recorded 1,061 cases today, on the basis – however – we remember – only tests reserved for the “at risk” categories. The count is therefore of little significance, as a large segment of the population is no longer subjected to “official” tests. Today, in fact, only 8,132 were examined, for a positivity rate of 7.7%.

The number of Covid-19 outbreaks in vulnerable contexts has increased slightly: there are now 191 epidemics in progress out of a total of 626 long-term care homes in Ontario, 123 retirement homes and 89 hospitals.

The active and known cases in Ontario are now, officially, 19,218: against the 19,553 of yesterday. The number, therefore, has been decreasing day after day for over two weeks now.

Since the onset of the pandemic, 1,255,239 healings have been recorded in Ontario, about 97% of known cases which have been 1,287,529 so far. The cases of Covid-19 positively resolved today are 1,394.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay