Ontario is reporting 510 new COVID-19 cases and four new deaths on Friday, with the province’s known active case burden rising to a level not seen since late June.
The province reported 513 new cases on Thursday and 324 on Wednesday.
The seven day rolling average of new infections now stands at 399, up from 375 yesterday and about 200 one week ago.
Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table says this rapid case growth is being driven by a reproductive rate not seen in the province since last spring.
The table estimates Ontario’s Rt is now 1.62, meaning every 10 infected people will pass the virus on to at least 16 others.
Provincial labs processed 23,586 test specimens in the previous period, generating a positivity rate excluding duplicate and inconclusive tests, of two per cent.
Ministry of Health spokesperson Alexandra Hilkene said two of the deaths occurred sometime in the past two months and were discovered through investigation by local public health units.
There have now been 9,416 confirmed deaths in Ontario due to COVID-19 since March 2020, with 3,110 known active cases and 541,946 recoveries.
Ontario’s known active caseload has not been this high since June 22.
Health Minister Christine Elliott says that of the 111 people with COVID-19 in hospital intensive care units today, 108 are not fully vaccinated or have unknown vaccine status.
She said that of the 510 cases reported Friday, 368 involve unvaccinated people and 57 involve partially vaccinated people.
Unvaccinated infections represent 72 per cent of Friday’s total, despite being no more than 29 per cent of Ontario’s population.
Local public health units and hospitals reported a total 122 people with COVID-19 admitted for treatment on Friday.
Across the GTA, Toronto reported 129 new cases, the highest daily case count for the city seen since June 29.
Peel Region reported 61 new cases, York Region reported 33 new cases, Durham reported 17 new cases, Halton reported 26 new cases and Hamilton reported 51 new infections.
The province says 48,682 additional COVID-19 vaccines were administered on Thursday, including 11,619 first doses.
The province says that 81.2 per cent of those 12 and up now have at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose and 72.5 per cent have received two 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.
