Ontario reports more than 1,600 new coronavirus cases, 10 more deaths

Ontario is reporting 1,631 new coronavirus cases on Monday, marking the largest single-day increase in over a month. The provincial total now stands at 309,927.

However, in an update late morning, the Ontario government said the case count “is higher than expected due to a data catch-up process related to the provincial CCM system.”

In a press conference Monday afternoon, Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Ontario’s associate chief medical officer of health, said the actual number of new cases is likely closer to 1,300.

Still, Monday’s overall case count is up from Sunday’s which saw 1,299 new infections. On Saturday, 990 new cases were recorded and 1,250 on Friday.

News of higher cases come as Toronto, Peel Region and North Bay move out of the stay-at-home order and into grey and red zones of the province’s COVID-19 framework.

According to Monday’s provincial report, 568 cases were recorded in Toronto, 322 in Peel Region, 119 in York Region, 91 in Thunder Bay, 68 in Durham Region, 57 in Ottawa, and 51 in both Waterloo and Halton regions.

All other local public health units reported fewer than 50 new cases in the provincial report.

The death toll in the province has risen to 7,077 as 10 more deaths were recorded.

Officials have listed 879 U.K. variant cases (B.1.1.7) which is up by 51 since yesterday, 39 South African variant cases (B.1.351) which is up by eight, and 17 Brazilian variant cases (P.1) which is up by four, that have been detected so far in the province.

Meanwhile, 291,834 Ontarians were reported to have recovered from COVID-19, which is 94 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 994 from the previous day.

Active cases in Ontario now stand at 11,016 — up from the previous day when it was 10,389, and up from last Monday at 10,570. At the peak of the coronavirus surge in January, active cases hit above 30,000.

The seven-day average has now reached 1,155, up from yesterday at 1,069, and up from last week at 1,099.

The government said 38,063 tests were processed in the last 24 hours. There is currently a backlog of 13,891 tests awaiting results. A total of 11,436,417 tests have been completed since the start of the pandemic.

Test positivity — the percentage of tests that come back positive — for Monday was 3.4 per cent, up from Sunday when it was 3.1 per cent, and up from a week ago when it was at 3.1 per cent.

Ontario reported 626 people hospitalized with COVID-19 (up by 20 from the previous day) with 282 patients in intensive care units (up by nine) and 184 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (up bye five).

As of 8 p.m. Sunday, the province has administered 912,486 COVID-19 vaccine doses, representing an increase of 21,882 in the last day. There are 273,676 people fully vaccinated with two doses.

Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Oxford-AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson are the vaccines currently approved in Canada. The first three require two shots administered several weeks apart while the fourth requires only one.

Here is a breakdown of the total cases in Ontario by gender and age:

• 152,591 people are male — an increase of 805 cases.
• 155,659 people are female — an increase of 799 cases.
• 41,940 people are 19 and under — an increase of 321 cases.
• 113,601 people are 20 to 39 — an increase of 596 cases.
• 89,413 people are 40 to 59 — an increase of 447 cases.
• 44,450 people are 60 to 79 — an increase of 224 cases.
• 20,447 people are 80 and over — an increase of 47 cases.
• The province notes that not all cases have a reported age or gender.

Here is a breakdown of the total deaths related to COVID-19 by age:

• Deaths reported in ages 19 and under: 2
• Deaths reported in ages 20 to 39: 30
• Deaths reported in ages 40 to 59: 287
• Deaths reported in ages 60 to 79: 1,953
• Deaths reported in ages 80 and older: 4,804
• The province notes there may be a reporting delay for deaths and data corrections or updates can result in death records being removed.

Cases, deaths and outbreaks in Ontario long-term care homes

According to the Ministry of Long-Term Care, there have been 3,748 deaths reported among residents and patients in long-term care homes across Ontario which remained the same as yesterday. Eleven virus-related deaths in total have been reported among staff.

There are 84 current outbreaks in homes, which is a unchanged from the previous day.

The ministry also indicated there are currently 55 active cases among long-term care residents and 139 active cases among staff — both unchanged in the last 24 hours.

Cases among students and staff at Ontario schools, child care centres

Meanwhile, government figures show there have been a total of 9,233 school-related COVID-19 cases in Ontario to date — 6,618 among students and 1,477 among staff (1,138 individuals were not identified). This is an increase of 95 more cases in the last day — 84 student cases and 11 staff cases.

In the last 14 days, the province indicates there are 1,050 cases reported among students, 167 cases among staff and 13 individuals were not identified — totaling 1,230 cases.

The COVID-19 cases are currently from 734 out of 4,828 schools in the province. Thirty schools in Ontario are currently closed as a result of positive cases, the government indicated.

There have been a total of 2,821 confirmed cases within child care centres and homes — an increase of 34 (20 new child cases and 14 staff cases). Out of 5,268 child care centres in Ontario, 162 currently have cases and 40 centres are closed.

Data for cases in schools and child care centres are updated weekdays only, at 10:30 a.m. On Monday’s, numbers are included from Thursday afternoon to Friday afternoon.

— With files from Ryan Rocca