TORONTO – An “explosive” growth, as the office of the Ontario Minister of Health, Christine Elliott, defined it: today provincial health officials recorded the presence of 2,081 people hospitalized for Covid-19 (288 are in intensive care), with an impressive jump, in just 24 hours, from the 1,290 patients of which 266 in the intensive care unit) on Tuesday – numbers moreover partial, given that the minister herself reported that about 10% of hospitals did not report the number of their patients. Anyway a worrying figure, as well as that of deaths, as many as 14 in a single day, which bring the total of victims in Ontario, from the beginning of the pandemic, to 10,252.

Of the 288 people in ICU, 202 are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status and 86 are fully vaccinated. According to the Ontario Science Table, people who are vaccinated with at least two doses are 82.7 percent less likely to end up in hospital and 94.4 percent less likely to end up in intensive care than those do not vaccinate.

As for new cases, 11,582 were recorded today but the number is underestimated both due to new tests restrictions (now the PCR testing access is limited to select groups) and backlogs. However, with 59,137 swabs processed in the last 24 hours, the province’s positivity rate is around 28.1 percent.

Of the 11,582 cases reported today, 9,040 involved fully vaccinated people, 1,647 unvaccinated people, 445 partially vaccinated people and 219 with an unknown vaccination status. In this case, unlike what happens with hospitalizations, the effectiveness of the vaccine is lower: fully vaccinated people (i.e. with at least two doses) are only 16.6% less likely to fight Covid-19 than to the unvaccinated.

But let’s see the areas most affected by the infections: in the Greater Toronto Area, 2,524 new cases were reported today in Toronto, 1,435 in the Peel region, 1,294 in the York region, 699 in the Durham region and 511 in the Halton region. There are also 584 new cases in Hamilton, 531 in the Waterloo region, 469 in Ottawa, 441 in Middlesex-London and 441 in the Niagara region, 381 in Simcoe-Muskoka and 334 in Windsor-Essex. All other regions reported fewer than 300 new cases.

The virus affects children and young people more and more: of the 11,582 recent new ones yesterday, 847 concern children under the age of 12, 966 young people between the ages of 12 and 19, 4,788 people between 20 and 39, 3,374 people between 40 and 59 years, 1,242 people between 60 and 79 years and 354 people over the age of 80.

The cases currently active (and known) in Ontario are 134,030 but it is evident that, in light of the absence of a mass “tracking”, there could be many, many more. In fact, however, it is impossible to know. The only certain data at this point is that of hospitals: and it is not reassuring.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay