Over 3,200 people have been taken to hospitals with COVID-19, and a record number of adults have been admitted to intensive care units in the last 24 hours.
On Tuesday, Health Minister Christine Elliott tweeted that 3,220 persons with the virus are in Ontario hospitals, up from 2,467 the day before. However, because more than 10% of hospitals do not report over the weekend, yesterday’s statistics was only a partial figure.
As of Monday, 61 children aged 0 to 4 years old have been admitted to hospitals with the virus, the highest COVID-19 hospitalization rate among patients under the age of 60.
Of those currently in hospital with the virus, 477 are in intensive care units, up from 438 yesterday and from 266 a week ago, according to the Ministry of Health.
A record 80 adults were admitted to the ICU yesterday, marking a record for daily ICU admissions since the pandemic began over two years ago, according to data from Critical Care Services Ontario provided by the Ontario Health Association (OHA).
Elliott said 54 per cent of admitted hospital patients testing positive for COVID-19 were admitted for treatment of COVID symptoms while 46 per cent were admitted for a different medical issue and happened to test positive for coronavirus.
Eighty-three per cent of COVID-19 patients in intensive care are being treated primarily for coronavirus infection while 17 per cent were admitted to ICU and incidentally tested positive for COVID-19.
The OHA said a total of 1,765 ICU beds were full on Monday, resulting in a total of 578 adult ICU beds available across the province. As of Jan. 9, over 90 per cent of all hospital beds were occupied, up 1.5 per cent from the previous day.
Although the hospital system is overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, Ontario Health CEO Matthew Anderson says the rate of hospitalizations appears to be easing.
“The one thing I would say that perhaps is some good news for us at this moment is that the rate of increase on hospitalizations seems to be slowing, and the rate of positivity on our PCR network also seem to be slowing… it’s still a little bit early days to declare what that means from a trend perspective,” he said during a news briefing Tuesday afternoon.
“…(there’s) an expectation that we will continue to see cases rise over the next week or so. Cases should then start to to maximize or plateau and then we would start to see that phenomenon happening with hospitalizations towards the end of January and ICU in February,” he added.
So far, over 87 per cent of Ontarians five years and older have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, 82 per cent have received two doses and 35 per cent have received three doses.
The ministry says another 21 deaths occurred in the past month, raising the death toll to 10,399.
Meanwhile, another 9,893 people recovered from the virus in the past 24 hours.
Provincial labs processed 45,451 tests yesterday, producing a positivity rate of 24.4 per cent, according to the ministry. The seven-day rolling average of the positivity rate stands at 27.6 per cent compared to 30.9 per cent this time a week ago.
Ontario reported 7,951 new coronavirus cases today, down from 9,076 and 11,352 a week ago. However, case counts are likely an underestimate due to limited testing capacity which is reserved for the highest-risk individuals.
COVID-19 outbreaks among the highest-risk settings continue to rise. There are currently 369 active COVID-19 outbreaks in long-term care homes across the province, up from 231 a week ago.
To date, there have been 896,248 lab-confirmed coronavirus infections and 747,289 recoveries since Jan. 2020.
The latest numbers come as the government announced yesterday that students would be returning to in-person learning on Monday after pivoting to remote learning last week following the holiday break.
Source_ globalnews.ca
