Ontario reported 20 new COVID-19 deaths and 722 patients hospitalized with the virus, on Saturday.
According to the Ministry of Health, 16 of the deaths recorded today happened within the last month, and four happened more than a month ago.
Long-term care facility residents accounted for two of the deaths.
The ministry inaugurated a new method of reporting COVID-19 deaths on Friday, by specifying the “fatality type,” which includes whether COVID was the underlying cause of death, contributed to the death, or if the cause of death was uncertain or absent from provincial data.
However, the breakdown of today’s reported deaths has not yet been released.
The ministry also changed the COVID-19 death tally to exclude fatal cases of COVID-19 where the cause of death was found to be unrelated to the virus.
There have been 12,247 virus-related deaths reported by the province since March 2020.
The ministry says there are currently 722 people in hospital with the virus, up from 717 yesterday, but down from 795 a week ago.
Health Minister Christine Elliott says 47 per cent of patients were admitted for COVID-19 and 53 per cent were admitted for other reasons but have tested positive for the virus.
Meanwhile, 232 of those hospitalized patients are in intensive care, compared to 253 a week ago.
Seventy-seven per cent of ICU patients were admitted to hospital for the virus and 23 per cent were admitted for other reasons but have tested positive for COVID-19, according to Elliott.
Ontario labs processed just over 13,000 tests yesterday, producing a positivity rate of 12.1 per cent, according to the ministry.
The province confirmed 2,015 lab-confirmed coronavirus cases today but health officials say that is an undercount due to testing restrictions.
The vaccination status of today’s cases are unavailable due to technical difficulties, the ministry says.
So far, 89 per cent of Ontarians aged five years and older have received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, 86 per cent have received two doses and 50 per cent have received three doses.
To date, there have been 1,123,709 lab-confirmed coronavirus cases and 1,095,221 recoveries in Ontario since Jan. 2020.
Yesterday marked two years since the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Source_ globalnews.ca
