Ontario reported 13 net new COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday, as the number of patients in hospital with the virus fell slightly.

The Ministry of Health says 12 of the deaths reported Wednesday occurred in the past 30 days and one was from prior to that period.

One of the 13 deaths involved a resident of the long-term care system.

There have been 72 deaths reported in the past week and 336 in the past 30 days.

There have been 12,583 COVID-19 deaths confirmed in Ontario since March 2020.

The number of patients admitted to provincial hospitals with COVID-19 fell by 34 from Tuesday to 1,332.

Of those, 182 were in intensive care, down eight from Tuesday.

Eighty-five patients were breathing with the help of a ventilator, up three one day earlier.

Wednesday’s hospital occupancy was still up about 24 per cent from one week ago.

Provincial labs processed 23,618 test specimens, generating a positivity rate of at least 17.5 per cent.

The province is now embarking on a major effort to book fourth COVID-19 vaccine doses for everyone 60 and up, as well as distribute the Pfizer antiviral pill Paxlovid to pharmacies in a bid to reduce deaths and hospitalizations during the sixth wave of COVID-19.

The Ministry of Health says 38,191 COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered on Tuesday.

Of those, 1,174 were first doses, 1,854 were second doses, 5,211 were third doses and 29,952 were fourth doses.

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.