On Thursday, Ontario reported 3,682 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 40 more deaths linked to the illness. The seven-day average of daily deaths, a lagging indicator that tracks case surges, increased to 27. The official death toll is 7,829 people. According to the Ministry of Health, there are now 806 people, with 588 of them in Ontario’s intensive care units.
Some are also enrolled in the third wave of high-wave vaccination campaigns. The chief medical officer of health of Ontario has issued a new directive to hospitals in northern Ontario to halt all non-emergency surgeries in order to make room for patient transfers. The government has repeatedly urged the province to go above and beyond what is available through the federal Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit for essential workers.
At a morning news conference, the health commissioner predicted that the province’s ICU admissions would likely surpass 800 by the end of the month, but he did not provide a timeline. Ontario’s medical officers of health are now facing the “definite possibility” of “eight-hundred is a place where we are not able to provide all of the care that we would like to provide.”
Premier Ford has apologized after a member of staff tested positive for COVID-19. Yesterday, health units administered 134,920 more doses of vaccine. More than 3.2 million people, or approximately 26.5 percent of Ontario’s total population, have received at least one dose. Demand for the AstraZeneca vaccine has risen “through the roof,” according to pharmacists in the Greater Toronto Area, since the province reduced the eligibility age from 55 to 40.
To date, the province has used 4,266,802 doses, or approximately 82% of the 5,248,345 doses received from the federal government. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes CoV-19, was detected in 54,246 tests, with a 7.8 per cent positivity rate across the province.
Source: CBC
