TORONTO – There are now more than 500 new cases of Covid-19 in Ontario every day: today, Ontario health officials reported 526, after 511 on Sunday, 578 on Saturday, 510 on Friday and 513 in Thursday. Prior to Thursday, the province had not reported more than 500 cases in 24 hours since June 13, when 530 new cases had been registered. The seven-day average of Ontario is now 469, compared to 283 daily infections last week. 

Another relevant data: of the cases added today, 350 were recorded in unvaccinated individuals and 67 in partially vaccinated ones. The remaining 94 cases were found in fully vaccinated people. Immunization therefore only partially helps to contain the spread of the virus and certainly limits the severity of the consequences of the disease, but the numbers indicate that even the vaccinated must continue to pay attention: Covid-19 can still affect them too.

Experts, however, continue to reassure. Infectious disease specialist Dr. Zain Chagla told Cp24 .com Monday that, however, most new infections involve unvaccinated people. “I think we will see what we are seeing in other countries, such as Israel and the UK, where there are hospitalizations, yes, but not as severe as those of previous waves. Yesterday, for example, none of the fully vaccinated people entered intensive care: therefore, once again, we can say that these vaccines work well”. Indeed, deaths have dropped compared to previous waves. Ontario, for example, reported no new deaths on Monday, keeping the province’s total death tally at 9,418. 321 instead today’s healings, which bring the number of patients healed in Ontario to 542,797. However, the positivity rate in Ontario remains high: with 15,784 tests processed in the last 24 hours, it stands at 2.7 percent.

Analyzing the distribution of the new infections in Ontario, in the Greater Toronto Area, officials reported 128 new cases in Toronto, 83 in the Peel region, 66 in the York region, 17 in the Durham region and 10 in the Halton region. 52 new cases were also reported in Hamilton, 46 in Windsor, 20 in Ottawa and Middlesex-London, 18 in Simcoe Muskoka, 14 in Waterloo, 11 in Niagara and 10 in Halton. All other regions reported fewer than 10 new coronavirus cases.

As for the variants, officials are analyzing cases on an ongoing basis to detect any mutations. Ontario confirmed another 4 new cases of Alpha B.1.1.7 today. The total case count for the strain is now 145,692. Officials have not identified any new cases of the Beta variant B.1.351 and thus the total case count in the province remains at 1,493. Additionally, the province found 1 new case of the Gamma P.1 variant, bringing its total number of cases to 5,178. As for the Delta variant, also known as variant B.1.617, officials reported 63 new cases of the strain, bringing the total number in the province to 6,245.

On the immunization front, in Ontario there are 9,583,506 people fully vaccinated: in the last 24 hours, 26,033 doses have been administered. Just over 20.2 million doses of the vaccine have been injected in the province since the start of the campaign.

In Quebec, the cases recorded today are 409: 1,163 infections counted over the weekend, during which there was also a death. The total of cases in Quebec since the beginning of the pandemic therefore rises to 381,996, but the sad “ranking” is still led by Ontario with 556,087. The total cases recorded in Canada since the beginning of the pandemic, on the other hand, are 1,453,110 (last updating on Monday afternoon).

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay