TORONTO – It was a Christmas under siege for Ontario: almost ten thousand new cases of Covid-19 a day, with a positivity rate that has reached 20%. Impressive data, which highlight the very high spread of the virus which, however, does not correspond to an increase in the proportion of hospitalizations: patients obviously increase (with similar numbers the opposite would be impossible), but their number does not reach, at least moment, equally impressive “peaks”. And this should at least comfort, because while the data relating to the tests are not complete (as we will explain in a few lines), there is no escaping those of the hospitalizations: those who are sick end up in hospital. But let’s start with the infections. 

The provincial health officials recorded 8,825 today, Tuesday: last Tuesday they were 3,453. The latest figure comes after a fiery Christmas period: 9,418 new cases on Monday, 9,826 on Sunday and 10,412 on Saturday. The seven-day moving average of cases reached 8,318, more than double the average (3,153) recorded a week ago.

The same officials warn, however, that today’s case numbers are underestimated due to a backlog of tests waiting to be processed, as the demand for tests exceeds the supply available across the province. “Due to changes in test availability, driven by the increase in cases related to the Omicron variant, the case count in this report is an underestimate of the true number of individuals with Covid-19 in Ontario. Therefore, the data should be interpreted with caution”, the officials wrote in the daily bulletin.

As for the distribution of new cases in Ontario, 2,797 cases were recorded in Toronto today (compared to 2,763 cases on Monday), while 1,272 cases were reported in York, 886 in Peel, 399 in Halton and 389. in Durham. Toronto now has the province’s third highest infection rate on a per capita basis, behind only the Halton and Kingston region.

Let’s move on to hospitals: currently there are 491 people with the virus in hospitals throughout the province and 187 of these patients are in intensive care units: the previous day there were 176, therefore compared to 8,825 new infected (certainly an underestimated number), in intensive care 11 people entered (absolutely certain number).

Vaccines: so far, over 90% of Ontarians 12 years of age and older have received one dose of the vaccine and 88% have received two. Another 2,481 people today recovered from the virus: now the active (and known) cases throughout the province are 74,783.

Finally, another 7 deaths were recorded today, bringing the total deaths from coronavirus, since the beginning of the pandemic, in Ontario to 10,168.

Photo by Mufid Majnun on Unsplash