Ontario is reporting more than 600 new COVID-19 cases as the number of breakthrough infections surpasses new cases among unvaccinated individuals today.
Provincial health officials logged 627 new COVID-19 infections today, down from 741 on Sunday but up from 552 one week ago.
Of the new cases reported today, 286 involve those who are fully vaccinated, 282 are in people who are unvaccinated, 36 involve individuals with an unknown vaccination status, and 23 are in people who have received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
It in the first time since the province began releasing data on case counts and vaccination status that breakthrough infections in vaccinated people have outpaced cases involving unvaccinated individuals.
It should be noted that while breakthrough infections have been rising in the province in recent weeks, unvaccinated people are still disproportionately impacted by the virus. About 45 per cent of today’s cases were found in the 20 per cent of the population who have not received a single dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
The rolling seven-day average continues to rise week-over-week, hitting 656 today, up from 573 last Monday.
Ontario saw a notable jump in the positivity rate week-over-week. With 19,552 tests processed yesterday, officials are reporting a provincewide positivity rate of 3.4 per cent, up from 2.2 per cent last Monday. It’s the highest daily positivity rate seen in Ontario since Sept. 11.
The public health units with the highest number of new cases include Toronto (92), Simcoe-Muskoka (53), Peel Region (53), York Region (38), Sudbury (37), Waterloo (35), and Ottawa (32).
There are now 5,597 known, active COVID-19 cases in Ontario, up from 4,985 one week ago.
One more virus-related death was confirmed in Ontario today, bringing the province's death toll to 9,968.
The number of COVID-19 patients receiving treatment in Ontario intensive care units has dipped week-over-week to 133, down from 141 seven days ago. This number includes about eight patients from Saskatchewan who were transferred to provincial hospitals. While the province does not release the vaccination status of COVID-19 patients in the ICU early in the week, as of Friday, only 12 COVID-19 patients in the ICU were fully vaccinated.
More than 78 per cent of all Ontarians have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 and that number is expected to jump in the coming weeks as children ages five to 11 receive their first shot.
The province announced today that it plans to open up vaccination appointments to children in that age cohort starting tomorrow following the approval of Pfizer's COVID-19 pediatric vaccine in Canada.
"This is really going to provide incremental help," Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious diseases specialist at Toronto General Hospital, told CP24 on Monday.
"Obviously there are fewer people... who are going to get sick with COVID-19, who will get infected, but that also means fewer people that they will infect, including classmates, people in their extracurricular activities, family members. There is just less amplification of this virus when you have more and more immune people."
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.
