More than 2,400 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, marking a new record for hospitalizations throughout the pandemic.
The Ministry of Health says 2,472 patients are in Ontario hospitals with the virus, up from 2,279 yesterday and breaking the previous record of 2,360 hospitalizations on Apr. 20, 2021.
Among the hospitalized patients, 1,327 are fully vaccinated, 441 are unvaccinated, 100 are partially vaccinated and over 600 have an unknown vaccination status.
Currently, the ministry says hospitalizations include patients who were admitted for COVID-19 and those who were admitted for other reasons and are now testing positive for the virus.
The ministry says 338 of the hospitalized patients are in intensive care units, compared to 319 on Thursday. Among the ICU patients, 232 are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status.
The seven-day rolling average of coronavirus patients in ICU is 271.
As of Jan. 6, the province said there were about 540 adult ICU beds available out of the 2,343 total beds in the province, as nearly 1,500 beds are also being used for non-COVID-19-related reasons.
Hospitalizations among young children appear to be rising. As of Jan. 6, Public Health Ontario says there were 51 children under four years old in hospital with the virus compared to 43 the previous day.
The province also reported 43 more virus-related fatalities today and 42 of those deaths occurred over the past 10 days, according to the ministry.
Over the past week, the ministry reported 121 virus-related deaths and the death toll now stands at 10,315.
Ontario logged 11,899 new coronavirus infections today, down from 13,339 yesterday, but actual case counts are likely much higher due to limited testing capacity reserved for high-risk individuals.
Among the latest cases, 9,515 are fully vaccinated, 1,543 are unvaccinated, 375 are partially vaccinated and 466 have an unknown vaccination status.
There are currently 312 COVID-19 outbreaks in long-term care homes across the province, compared to 291 yesterday and 135 a week ago.
Ontario labs processed more than 61,100 tests in the past 24 hours, resulting in a positivity rate of 26.6 per cent, according to the ministry.
So far, 87 per cent of Ontarians five years and older have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, 81 per cent have received two doses and 31 per cent have received three doses.
This week, Toronto started administering fourth doses at long-term care homes to provide additional protection to some of the city’s most vulnerable residents.
Infectious diseases specialist at Toronto General Hospital, Dr. Isaac Bogoch, says it’s unclear at this point in time if the general population should also get fourth doses.
“Nobody really knows. Will this be something like an annual shot that we get just like a flu shot? Will this be something where maybe we have significant immunity that lasts for a few years and you might need a booster two or three years down the line based on variants that emerge in our protective immunity, or will we even need another one? I think it's very difficult to confidently answer that question,” he told CP24 on Friday.
To date, there have been 853,270 lab-confirmed coronavirus cases and 707,732 recoveries since the pandemic began over two years ago.
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.
