TORONTO – Ontario can breathe, at least for 24 hours: after the 636 new cases registered on Sunday – the highest number of infections in a single day in almost a month – today the province registered 480 new infections, more in line with last week’s Monday’s 422, albeit far above the 326 of two weeks ago. The seven-day moving average of is now 476: a week ago it was 362. 

Of the new cases confirmed today in Ontario, 244 were detected in unvaccinated people, 191 in fully immunized individuals, 32 with unknown vaccination status, and 13 in partially vaccinated individuals. For the second consecutive day, the positivity rate reached two per cent: with 22,980 tests processed in the last 24 hours, provincial health officials reported a positivity rate of 2.2%, up from 1.8 % last week.

Active (known) cases in Ontario are now 4,040, up from 3,159 on Monday. At the peak of the second wave, in January, there were over 30,000 active cases and in the third wave, in April, they had reached 43,000. The highest number of today’s new cases was reported in Toronto (53), Waterloo region (49), York region (39), Peel region (39) and Ottawa (36).

The number of patients in intensive care units (ICUs) in Ontario is now 127, down from 133 last week. During the peak of the second wave in January, Ontario had as many as 900 patients in intensive care with Covid-19 (and nearly 2,400 in general hospital wards). Another 2 deaths related to the virus were also recorded today, bringing the death toll of Covid-19 in Ontario, since March 2020, to 9,900, distributed as follows by age group: 6 aged 19 years or younger ; 104 between 20 and 39 years; 690 between 40 and 59 years; 3,241 between 60 and 79 years; 5,858 aged 80 or over (the exact age of one case is unknown).

Here is a report on the total cases in Ontario since the beginning of the pandemic (603,711) by sex and age, as reported by GlobalNews based on the data provided by the Province: 301,797 people are male; 299,754 people are women; 17,338 people are under the age of 4; 32,384 people from 5 to 11 years; 53,847 people aged 12 to 19; 226,835 people aged 20 to 39; 168,884 people aged 40 to 59; 78,090 people aged 60 to 79; 26,227 people aged 80 and over (not all cases have a reported age or sex).

Quebec today reported 4 deaths (11,522 since the start of the pandemic) and 531 new infections (22,006 tests carried out): the active cases have once again exceeded 5,000 throughout the province, now they are 5,253.

Of the new infections reported, 347 (65%) were detected in people who were not fully vaccinated and 184 of them (34%) received the second dose of the vaccine more than a week ago.

The positivity rate in Quebec is 2.4 percent.

Most people hospitalized with the virus in the past 24 hours were also not fully vaccinated. Overall, admissions fell by two today compared to yesterday, for a total of 225 admissions. The number of people in ICU also dropped by two, bringing the total to 48.

Image par Elchinator de Pixabay