The number of COVID-19 patients in Ontario hospitals has dropped below 600 for the first time in nearly three months.
According to provincial health officials, 551 COVID-19 patients are now receiving treatment in hospitals, down from 602 the week before. Since December 28, when 491 patients were treated in Ontario, COVID-related hospitalizations have remained above 600.
There are now 181 intensive care patients, down from 228 a week ago and the lowest number since late December.
It should be noted that not all hospitals report data to the province early in there week.
An additional four virus-related deaths were added to the province’s cumulative total on Monday, bringing Ontario’s death toll to 12,336. This includes three deaths that occurred in the past month and one that occurred more than a month ago.
Officials say 1,217 new COVID-19 cases were confirmed by provincial labs over the past 24 hours but that is not an accurate reflection of the true burden of infection in Ontario due to significant restrictions on testing.
Of those cases confirmed today, 175 involve people who are not fully vaccinated, 295 involve those who have at least two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, 632 involve people who have received two doses plus a booster shot, and 115 involve people with an unknown vaccination status.
With 8.644 tests processed over the past 24 hours, officials are reporting a province wide positivity rate of 13.4 per cent, up from 12.1 per cent last week.
Masks will no longer be required in a variety of public places, including retail establishments, restaurants, schools, gyms, and movie theaters, as of today.
The Ford government previously said that, as a result of improving COVID-19 transmission statistics in Ontario, masks will no longer be required in many settings as of today. Masks are still required on public transportation and in other high-risk environments, such as nursing homes.
The province’s Science Advisory Table recently released modeling that shows transmission will likely begin to rebound in Ontario soon, but hospitalization levels aren’t projected to rise to anywhere near what they were during the peak of the Omicron wave in mid-January.
Source_ cp24.com
