As the province prepared to administer more booster shots to Ontarians to battle the spread of the Omicron strain, Ontario announced its highest daily COVID-19 case count in seven months.
Today, the province recorded 2,421 new illnesses, up from 1,808 the day before and the largest single-day case total since May 15, when 2,584 new infections were reported.
The province reported 1,476 additional instances on Monday, 1,536 on Tuesday, and 1,429 on Wednesday earlier this week.
The Ministry of Health says that of the new cases, 1,530 are fully vaccinated, while 686 are unvaccinated, 72 are partially vaccinated and 133 have an unknown vaccination status.
Unvaccinated individuals, who make up roughly 23 per cent of Ontario’s total population, represent 28 per cent of all cases today.
Yesterday, the province administered a total of 137,803 COVID-19 vaccine doses across the province.
So far, over 85 per cent of Ontarians five years and older have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and nearly 81 per cent have received two doses.
Ontario announced a plan to accelerate booster shots Wednesday. Over 1.4 million people in the province have received three doses of a COVID-19 vaccine so far.
Infectious diseases specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch expects the government will ramp up vaccinations in the coming days.
“I would not be surprised if we reach, you know, over 200,000 vaccines administered per day in the very near future because you’re watching the province mobilize an all hands on deck approach,” he told CP24 Thursday morning.
As cases continue to steadily rise, the seven-day rolling average climbed to 1,676 today, compared to 1,055 a week ago.
Over the past month, cases have been increasing in most public health units across the province with the emergence of the highly contagious Omicron variant.
Yesterday, the province’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table said about 53 per cent of all COVID-19 cases in the province are caused by Omicron.
The table also said that the Omicron variant has a doubling time of 2.2, which means the virus is doubling in the province roughly every three days.
On Wednesday, the table’s scientific director Dr. Peter Jüni said the province could see over 10,000 new cases of COVID-19 by New Year’s Eve due to Omicron’s doubling time.
Source_ cp24.com
