TORONTO – The number of patients in Ontario hospitals due to (45%) or with (55%) Covid-19 continues to grow. Today, for the first time since mid-February, they were 1.662, from 1.486 on Tuesday and 1.301 on Monday. 203 patients in intensive care (yesterday 206: 59% are in the ICU due to the virus, 41% for other reasons and tested positive for Covid-19 at the time of the hospital admission test). And above all, many deaths: another 28 today. The total death toll in Ontario since the start of the pandemic is now 12,661. 

1,073 new cases confirmed today in the laboratory on the basis of just over 21,900 tests processed and reserved only for the “at risk” categories: the positive rate of the province is about 16.8%. The active and known cases are now 31,080, down for a few days: 33,953 on Tuesday, 35,500 on Monday. But these figures are far from reality, given that “official” tests are now reduced to a minimum.

Difficult situation also in Quebec where another 26 deaths were recorded today, bringing the total in the French-speaking province, since the beginning of the pandemic, to 14,740.

Hospitalizations are also increasing, with a “jump” of 100 patients: from the 2,281 beds occupied on Tuesday to 2,381 yesterday (235 new hospitalizations and 135 discharges in the last 24 hours). The cases of intensive care units remained the same for a total of 101.

2,330 new coronavirus infections, based on 18,025 tests (reserved, as is known, for the “at risk” categories). As for the quick do-it-yourself tests carried out at home by citizens and included in the portal activated by the provincial government, of the 1,138 self-declared yesterday 926 are positive. Since the portal was activated at the beginning of the year, citizens have entered 187,051 tests, of which 152,390 positive. The active and known cases in Quebec are, officially, 27,756.

Meanwhile, the number of health workers absent from work due to the virus also continues to rise: from 10,636 yesterday to 10,833 today.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay