TORONTO – The Covid situation seems to stabilize in Ontario and Quebec: in both provinces, less than 600 new cases were recorded today. 

In Ontario, 574 infections (and 8 deaths) were reported, nearly on par with the 577 reported a week ago and below that on Monday (610). The seven-day moving average of new cases, which has declined slowly but steadily in the province over the past two weeks, also appears to have stabilized.

The average number of new infections reported every day in the province stands at 711, unchanged compared to Monday and slightly down compared to a week ago (716). The number of active cases also falls to 6,178 from 6,103 last week.

With 23,631 tests processed in the last 24 hours, the province recorded a positive rate of 2.4 percent, a slight increase compared to the 2.3 percent of last Tuesday but down compared to yesterday (2.7%).

Turning to the territorial distribution, the new cases were detected mainly in Toronto (104), Peel region (80), Ottawa (58), York region (44), Niagara region (39), Windsor-Essex region ( 34) and Halton region (31).

At least 293 cases have been documented in schools across Ontario: these infections include 265 infections in students and 22 in staff members. The remaining 6 cases were not identified. 593 of the 4,844 schools in Ontario (12.24%) have at least one case.

Of all the cases reported today, 434 (76%) were detected in individuals not fully vaccinated or with an unknown vaccination status and 140 (24%) in fully immunized individuals.

About 30% of Ontario residents are still not fully vaccinated, including children under 12 who still cannot receive the dose and who represent about 10% of the population. As of today, nearly 85.2 percent of Ontario eligible have received at least one vaccine injection and 79.2 percent have received two. In total, since the start of the immunization campaign, 21,434,434 doses have been administered across Ontario, including 30,072 administered on Monday.

Meanwhile, the number of patients receiving treatment in Ontario’s intensive care units (ICU) continues to decline. There are currently 179 patients in intensive care, down from 192 on Tuesday and 170 of these are not fully immunized.

Today’s data comes just as Ontario kicks off (tomorrow, September 22) the vaccination certificate program, which requires residents to prove they are fully immunized against Covid-19 in order to access some “non-essential” activities such as restaurants , gyms and cinemas. An unsolicited “try”, perl, to dine on the patio, shop at retail or to access essential services.

Almost specular situation in Quebec where another 9 deaths and 587 new cases of Covid-19 were recorded today out of a total of 22,917 swabs. Of the new cases, 416 people are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated with a dose received less than 14 days ago; 31 are people who received one dose more than two weeks ago and 140 are people who received two doses of a vaccine more than seven days ago.

Admissions fell by six, bringing the number of people in Quebec hospitals to 274 (27 people were hospitalized and 33 people were discharged). 86 people in intensive care, also down by six with 9 hospitalized and 15 discharged. Of the new hospitalizations, 20 refer to unvaccinated or partially vaccinated people who received one dose less than two weeks ago and 7 to people who received two doses more than a week ago Provincial health officials point out, in this regard, that the risk of infection for unvaccinated people is 8.8 times higher than that of those who received two doses and the risk of hospitalization is 34.2 times higher.

However, the vaccination campaign continues fast: yesterday 10,204 more vaccinations were counted, for a total of 12,770,977 doses administered in the province since the beginning of the immunization campaign. Outside Quebec, 170,656 doses were administered for a cumulative total of 12,941,633, or 77.9 percent of the population. As of September 20, therefore, a total of 6,640,783 Quebecers, or 88% of the eligible population aged 12 years or older, received the first dose of vaccine and 6,217,186 people, or 83 % of eligible population aged 12 and over received two.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash