The number of COVID-19 patients receiving treatment in intensive care at Ontario hospitals climbed above 180 today, the highest that number has been since mid-March.
Provincial health officials say there are currently 1,090 patients in hospitals across Ontario with COVID-19, up from 977 on Sunday and 857 last Monday.
Of those patients, 184 are in the ICU, up from 173 on Sunday and 168 one week ago.
On Mondays, the province does not release data on the number of patients admitted to hospital for COVID and those admitted for other reasons. Hospitalization numbers are often lower on Mondays as not all hospitals report data to the province early in the week.
Three more virus-related deaths were added to Ontario's cumulative COVID-19 death toll today, which now stands at 12,566. These deaths occurred within the past month, the province says.
Another 2,401 cases of the virus were confirmed by provincial labs but that number continues to be a significant undercount due to testing restrictions.
Only 12,149 tests were processed over the past 24 hours, resulting in a positivity rate of 17.6 per cent, according to officials.
Of the cases confirmed today, 293 involve those who are not fully vaccinated, 489 involve people with two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, 1,477 involve those with three doses, and 142 involve people with an unknown vaccination status.
The scientific director of Ontario's Science Advisory Table recently indicated that wastewater data puts the number of new daily infections in the province at around 100,000.
There are currently 137 COVID-19 outbreaks at long-term care homes, up from 100 seven days ago. Officials say there are now 74 outbreaks at hospitals in the province, up from just 40 last Monday.
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.
