Ontario is reporting nearly 500 new COVID-19 cases and three more deaths on Wednesday as the rolling seven-day average continues to rise.
Provincial health officials logged 485 new coronavirus infections today, a significant increase from 348 on Tuesday and from 324 a week ago.
Among today’s cases, 309 are in unvaccinated individuals, 41 are in partially vaccinated individuals and the remaining are either fully vaccinated or their vaccination status is undocumented.
The province reported 526 new cases on Monday, 511 on Sunday and 578 on Saturday.
The seven-day rolling average now stands at 496, a roughly 50 per cent increase from 332 a week ago.
Another 345 people recovered from the virus in the past 24 hours.
Information on intensive care admissions was not provided due to a technical issue, though 127 COVID-19 patients were in intensive care wards as of Tuesday.
However, according to the latest data from hospitals and public health units there are at least 167 acute and ICU patients in Ontario hospitals due to COVID-19.
The province’s virus-related death toll now stands at 9,431.
Ontario labs processed more than 26,300 tests in the past 24 hours, bringing the positivity rate to 2.5 per cent, up from 1.7 per cent a week ago, according to the Ministry of Health.
The province reported 108 new COVID-19 cases in Toronto, up from 85 on Tuesday, 59 in Peel Region, 22 in York Region, 16 in Durham and 16 in Halton.
Elsewhere in Southern Ontario, 75 cases were reported in Windsor-Essex and 27 in Middlesex-London.
To date, there have been 556,920 lab-confirmed coronavirus cases and 543,422 recoveries since Jan. 2020.
More than 9.6 million people are fully vaccinated against the disease after receiving two doses of approved vaccines.
On Tuesday, Ontario’s top doctor announced that the province would pause lifting further public health restrictions as infections continue to rise amid the fourth wave.
It is not known when further restrictions could be lifted, including masking indoors and capacity limits on indoor and outdoor gatherings.
Infectious diseases specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch told CP24 on Wednesday morning that current restrictions will likely stay in place until the winter.
“I mean cases are going up and, you know, even with these very high vaccine rollouts. So, you know, we will get to a place where we won’t have to wear masks and we won't have to physical distance, we'll get there. We're just not going to get there in the next couple of months, that's for sure,” he said.
Ontario entered Step 3 of its reopening framework on July 16, which allowed gyms, movie theatre and restaurant dining rooms to reopen.
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.
