Ontario reported 21 new COVID-19 deaths on Sunday, as the number of patients admitted to intensive care exceeded 400 for the first time in more than six months.

The province also reported 11,959 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, though that number is certain to be a significant undercount.

Multiples Ontario public health officials have repeatedly warned that case counts do not reflect spread of infection in the community due to overwhelming demand for testing and significant limits on access put in place nine days ago.

Twenty of the deaths occurred in the past month while one was detected among deaths that occurred more than one month ago.

There have been 143 deaths reported among people who tested positive for COVID-19 in the last week.

The Ministry of Health says 1,643 of Sunday’s cases involve unvaccinated people, 414 involve the partially-vaccinated, 9,522 involve fully-vaccinated people and 380 involve people with an unknown vaccination status.

Provincial labs processed 49,422 specimens, their lowest output since Dec. 27, generating a positivity rate of 27.7 per cent.

There are 2,419 patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 and 412 of them are in intensive care.

Two-hundred and twenty six of those in intensive care are breathing on a ventilator.

It’s the first time the ICU burden caused by COVID-19 cases has exceeded 400 since June 14, 2021.

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.