TORONTO – The number of people in Ontario hospitals with COVID-19 continues to rise, with 438 patients now in intensive care. According to the Ministry of Health, another 26 people have entered intensive care due to the new coronavirus in the past 24 hours. Of these patients, 234 breathe with the assistance of a ventilator. There are now 2,467 Covid-19 patients in hospital, a slight increase from Sunday. 

But not all hospitals report data on weekends, as provincial health officials themselves have pointed out, and up-to-date vaccination data is not available either.

Ontario today recorded, for the first time in 2022, less than 10,000 new cases of Covid-19, to be precise 9,706: a figure that is actually totally unreliable and that at this point we report only for the record, given that most of the Ontario population cannot be tested due to provincial restrictions that limit reliable (molecular) tests to “at risk” categories only. Moreover, the tests processed today were less than 40,700: the only reliable statistic on the trend of infections is therefore that of positivity (number of tests processed / number of cases detected) which, on the other hand, is very high: 26.7%.

As for the territorial distribution, according to the epidemiological report of the province, 1,879 new cases were recorded yesterday in Toronto, 1,310 in the Peel region and 1,033 in the York region. Other municipalities that have reported more than 400 infections include Durham (680), Ottawa (565), Halton (437), Hamilton (412), and Simcoe-Muskoka (404). The active and known cases in Ontario are now 140,523.

Another 12 deaths were also confirmed in Ontario today: the total number of people who died after the diagnosis of Covid-19 in Ontario, since the beginning of the pandemic, is now equal to 10,378.

In Quebec, on the other hand, there have been 11,966 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic: today, in fact, 26 deaths were added. Over the past four days, there have been 120 deaths from Covid-19 in Quebec.

There is also an increase in hospitalizations: 351 new patients in a single day, against 233 discharges, for a “balance” of 118 more beds occupied, bringing the total, in the hospitals of the province, to 2,554. Of the new patients, 234 received two doses of the vaccine, 105 were unvaccinated and 12 received one dose of the vaccine.

Despite the increase in hospitalizations, the number of patients in intensive care has decreased: nine fewer people, for a total of 248.

As for infections, 10,573 were recorded today, out of a total of 42,341 samples examined, with a positivity rate of 19.7%. The Quebec Institute of Public Health (INSPQ) reported a drop of 16,808 active Covid-19 cases since Friday (but, again, fewer and fewer tests have been carried out). Currently there are 106,250 cases monitored by the INSPQ.

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