The number of people being treated for COVID-19 in intensive care units has dipped below 400 for the first time in more than a month, just as the province announces plans to lift most remaining public health restrictions.
The Ministry of Health says that there were 1,369 people in hospital with COVID-19 as of Sunday, including 394 in the ICU.
The number is likely an undercount as some hospitals don’t upload data over the weekend but it still a marked decline from this time last week when 2,155 people were in hospital with COVID-19, including 486 in intensive care.
It is also far off the fourth wave peak of 4,183 hospitalizations that Ontario reached on Jan. 18. The number of people in the ICU with COVID-19 peaked at 626 one week later.
The latest data comes as the Ford government announces plans to lift all remaining capacity limits, as well as its proof of vaccination system by March 1.
It has also committed to eventually lifting the mandatory mask order for indoor public settings with a specific timeline to be provided “at a later date.”
“We know the cases and hospitalizations are declining and the public health policy has to be aligned with the public health risk and also be grounded in the best available science and of course that changes with time. Right now I think it is OK to start lifting some, not all, but some of these measures we have,” infectious disease specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch told CP24 earlier on Monday, prior to the government’s announcement.
The Ontario Science Advisory Table has previously estimated that the Omicron-fueled fourth wave of the pandemic likely peaked sometime around Jan. 11, based on wastewater surveillance data.
Since then most public health indicators have been on the decline, though fatalities attributed to the novel coronavirus have remained at elevated levels as the most lagging of indicators.
On Monday the ministry added another eight people to its official COVID-19 death toll, pushing the number of people who have died after contracting the virus to 12,101 since the onset of the pandemic two years ago.
More than 1,900 of those deaths have occurred during the first six weeks of 2022.
Meanwhile, case counts continue to rapidly decline.
On Monday the ministry reported 1,765 new lab-confirmed cases with a positivity rate of 13 per cent.
The number does not reflect the level of transmission in the community due to the limited eligibility for PCR testing. However, it should be noted that Ontario has not reported fewer than 2,000 new cases of COVID-19 in any 24-hour period since December.
Outbreaks in the handful of settings with widespread access to PCR testing are also on the wane. There are now 184 active outbreaks in long-term care homes, 103 in retirement homes and 81 in hospitals. Those numbers are down 36 to 46 per cent when compared to last week.
“These metrics are all pointing in the right direction and that is fantastic news. There is no other way to look at it,” Bogoch said. “But if you look at the crystal ball and think to yourself what could make this great trend turn around, one is that it still cold outside and there are still people congregating in indoor settings so there is still opportunities for the virus to transmit and number two there are variants of concern and we just have to acknowledged that these can emerge and there will be more of them. So things are going great right now and I hope they continue to go well but there is always uncertainty with what lies ahead.”
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.
