Ontario reports 3,000+ COVID-19 cases for the first time since early May 2021

Ontario is reporting 3,124 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, the highest total reported since early May 2021, with the number of infections among unvaccinated and vaccinated people now more closely reflecting their proportions of the general population.

Five more deaths due to COVID-19 were detected in the past 24 hours, and the seven-day rolling average of new cases now stands at 1,914, up from 1,115 one week ago.

Today’s tally is more than double the 1,453 new infections confirmed during the same time period last week, pointing to the increased transmissibility of the Omicron variant, cases of which are believed to be doubling every 2.8 days.

The province reported 2,421 new cases on Thursday and 1,808 on Wednesday.

It’s the highest overall number of cases seen in Ontario since May 9, when the province was weeks into a strict stay-at-home order.

The Ministry of Health says that 778 of Friday’s cases involve unvaccinated people, 96 involve partially vaccinated people, 2,120 involve fully vaccinated people and 130 have an unknown vaccination status.

Approximately 18 per cent of the Ontario population is unvaccinated and they made up 25 per cent of all cases, while 68 per cent of Friday’s cases involved fully vaccinated people and they make up 77 per cent of the province’s population.

Waning immunity due to the duration of time since many Ontario residents and the immune escape ability of the Omicron coronavirus variant are likely to blame.

The Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table now believes more than 50 per cent of all cases in the province are Omicron.

UHN infectious diseases specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch told CP24 Ontario is “sitting on the cusp of a really large wave.”

“We are going to see some very, very high case numbers and that will lead to some hospitalizations, and some ICU stays and sadly some deaths,” he said. “That’s in the weeks away and not in the months away.”

Modellers suggested Thursday the province could see 10,000 or more cases per day by January.

Provincial labs increased their output to more than 54,000 test specimens, generating a positivity rate of 8.2 per cent.

Positivity has climbed every day from the mid-3 per cent range last week. Friday’s rate was higher than any time since May 10.

There are now 15,792 known active cases of COVID-19 in the province, alongside 10,107 deaths since March 2020 and more than 616,000 recoveries.

One week ago, there were only 9,200 active cases in the province.

The Ministry of Health said there were 358 people hospitalized due to COVID-19 on Friday, up 49 from one week ago, and 157 people were in intensive care, up six from one week ago.

Meanwhile, the province continues to ramp up vaccine administration as it appears to be an integral way of increasing immunity against symptomatic infection by the Omicron variant.

Ontario administered 156,525 vaccine doses on Thursday, with 13,562 first doses, 5,188 second doses and 137,775 third doses.

Across all age groups, 82 per cent of Ontario residents have at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, 77 per cent have two doses, and 10.7 per cent have a third dose.

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.