Today, approximately 900 additional COVID-19 cases have been reported in Ontario, with three more virus-related deaths.
Health officials in the province reported 887 new cases today, down from 1,184 on Sunday and 1,053 on Saturday, but up from 788 the day before.
The seven-day rolling average of new infections is now 940, up from 782 a week earlier.
426 people who are fully immunized, 373 people who are unvaccinated, 64 people with an unclear vaccination status, and 24 people who are partially immunized are among the new cases identified today.
More than 80 per cent of all Ontario residents have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, meaning that fewer than 20 per cent of people in the province remain completely unvaccinated. Despite this, unvaccinated people represent about 42 per cent of all new infections today.
The number of COVID-19 patients receiving treatment in Ontario intensive care units (ICU) continues to trend upward.
The Ministry of Health says there are currently 168 patients infected with COVID-19 receiving care in ICUs, up from 148 last Monday.
The province did not release data today about the vaccination status of ICU patients.
Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious diseases specialist with Toronto General Hospital, said in order to avoid overwhelming the hospital system, Ontario must try to avoid a repeat of last year’s holiday surge.
“I mean we haven’t even entered Christmas and New Years yet and we are over a thousand cases per day. Obviously we are watching Omicron carefully but we are also watching not just the daily case counts but the seven-day average, the hospitalizations, the ICU capacity, and we’ve got to be careful here. We really do,” he told CP24 on Monday morning.
“We don’t want to have a repeat of what we saw last year, which was a very, very large surge of cases over the course and just after the course of the holiday season and that put significant pressure on the hospitals. And we know sadly it just doesn’t take so much to really overwhelm our ICUs.”
He said during the last wave, it only took 550 COVID-19 patients in the ICU to stretch hospital capacity to its limit.
“550 people is not a lot of people. And yes I appreciate that the vast majority of eligible individuals in Ontario have done the right thing, they’ve rolled up their sleeves, they’ve got the vaccine… but when you look at the absolute number of people, not the percentage… who remain unvaccinated, who remain vulnerable to getting very sick, it is still a lot people and if those people get sick and land in our hospitals, we’re in trouble.”
Last week, Ontario’s Science Advisory Board produced a report claiming that the province “lacks the capacity” to handle the type of surge in hospitalizations seen during the third wave of the pandemic due to “worsening staffing shortages” and “worker burnout.” At one point last spring, 940 COVID-19 patients were in intensive care units.
The province now has 8,439 active COVID-19 cases, up from 6,816 a week earlier.
Officials indicate a province wide positivity rate of 3.5 percent, unchanged from last week, based on 25,981 tests processed in the last 24 hours.
Source_ The Canadian Press
