Ontario is reporting a slight increase in the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 from one week ago but other indicators, including case counts and the positivity rate on PCR tests, are continuing to decline.
The Ontario Science Advisory Table has previously estimated that community transmission of the virus likely peaked earlier this month at around 100,000 new cases a day, however hospitalizations are considered a lagging indicator and could continue to rise into May.
According to the latest data released by the Ministry of Health on Monday, there are now 1,455 people in hospital with COVID-19, up nearly 12 per cent from this time last week (1,301).
The number of people being treated in intensive care with COVID-19 is up more than eight per cent from this time last week and now stands at 219. Of those people, 97 of them are breathing with the assistance of a ventilator.
The hospitalization occupancy numbers are actually down from recent days when more than 1,600 people were in hospital with COVID-19, however because many hospitals don’t upload data to the ministry over the weekend the numbers released on Mondays are typically an undercount and should only be compared to the beginning of the previous week.
Speaking with CP24 earlier in the day, infectious disease specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch said that he expects hospitalizations will continue to rise for at least “another week or so” given the extremely high number of cases in the province throughout April.
Bogoch also cautioned people against interpreting the decline in virus levels detected through wastewater surveillance as a sign that this wave of the pandemic is over.
“You have to be very careful here because this doesn’t mean the pandemic is over or this wave is over,” he said. “It actually means the opposite. It means there are more infections now than at any other point during this wave. But on the positive side it means we are closer to coming down the other side of the mountain and that is a great sign.”
Case counts declining
Hospitalizations were rising by as much as 40 per cent week-over-week earlier in April, prompting some to raise concerns over the healthcare system’s ability to manage another sudden uptick in patient volumes.
The good news is that the rise in COVID-related hospitalization now appears to be slowing, though Bogoch said that there will unfortunately be more people in hospital with the virus by the end of this week as those cases are essentially already “baked in.”
“We are not shooting up with the rocket ship to the moon type projection, we are plateauing,” Bogoch said of the spread of the virus in Ontario. “So we are either at the peak, near the peak or maybe just past the peak depending on where you are in the province.”
The latest data suggests that there have been average of 3,134 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed by the province through PCR testing over the last seven days. That is compared to a seven-day average of 3,417 new cases as of April 18.
The positivity rate on PCR testing also appears to be coming down slowly. Over the last week an average of 16.7 per cent of all PCR tests have come back positive, compared to 18.5 per cent the previous week.
The province continues to limit free access to PCR testing to seniors 70 and up, healthcare workers and a select number of other groups.
Despite the positive signs, there does continue to be a slow increase in the number of active outbreaks in vulnerable settings.
As of Monday the number of long-term care home outbreaks stood at 195, up from 182 at this time last week. There were also 88 active hospital outbreaks, compared to 79 one week prior.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health added another two net new deaths to its COVID-19 tally toll on Monday. The total number of people who have died in Ontario after contracting the virus now stands at 12,736.
The numbers used in this story are found in the Ontario Ministry of Health's COVID-19 Daily Epidemiologic Summary. The number of cases for any city or region may differ slightly from what is reported by the province, because local units report figures at different times.
