Ontario reported more than 9,800 new COVID-19 cases, slightly less than Saturday’s high, while PCR testing remain scarce across the province, on Sunday.
According to Public Health Ontario, 9,826 new cases were reported in Ontario on Sunday, including seven new deaths.
On Saturday, Ontario reported a total of 10,412 new COVID-19 cases, up from 9,571 on Friday.
The rolling seven-day average of new cases is now 6,746, up from 2,542 a week earlier.
All portals dedicated to breaking down cases by vaccination status are also not publishing data until Dec. 29.
Health Minister Christine Elliott said there are 168 patients in hospital intensive care due to COVID-19 on Sunday, up one from Saturday and nine from one week ago.
Non-ICU hospital occupancy data released Sunday was incomplete.
In its daily epidemiological summary published on Saturday, Public Health Ontario warned all data during this period must incorporate the fact that there are not enough PCR tests to accommodate the number of people seeking them, even if those without symptoms are excluded.
“Due to changes in the availability of testing, driven by increasing COVID-19 cases related to the Omicron variant, case counts in this report are an underestimate of the true number of individuals with COVID-19 in Ontario. As such, data should be interpreted with caution.”
Elliott said 106,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine were administered on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
Across the GTHA, Public Health Ontario said 2,768 new cases were detected in Toronto, 813 in Peel, 903 in York and 422 in Durham Region.
Halton Region reported 510 new cases and Hamilton reported 568 new cases.
The increased caseload and rising numbers of COVID-19-related hospital admissions prompted one Toronto hospital network to take further action on Sunday.
University Health Network spokesperson Gillian Howard told CP24 it was reactivating its COVID-19 treatment unit.
“UHN has seen a gradual increase in patients who need admission for COVID over the past two weeks,” she said in an email. “This morning we have 19 patients with active COVID admitted and some in our Emergency Departments who may be admitted. The plans have been in place for some time to open a COVID unit, should the admissions increase and we are activating the unit now.”
Source_ globalnews.ca
