Ontario is reporting more than 600 new COVID-19 infections today as the province’s average daily case count continues to tick higher amid the fourth wave of the pandemic.

Provincial health officials recorded 660 new COVID-19 cases today, up from 486 on Tuesday and 485 last Wednesday.

Today’s rolling seven-day average of new cases now stands at 625, up from 600 on Tuesday and 496 one week ago.

Of the new cases confirmed today, 525 are in individuals who are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status and 135 are in those who are fully immunized.

The unvaccinated and people with only one dose account for only 28 per cent of Ontario’s population but 79.5 per cent of Wednesday’s case tally.

Today’s case count includes 151 new infections in Toronto, 93 in York Region, 86 in Hamilton, 52 in Peel Region, and 51 in Windsor.

One more virus-related death was confirmed in the province today and Ontario's death toll is now 9,472.

With 26,406 tests processed over the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health is reporting a provincewide positivity rate of 2.4 per cent, down slightly from 2.5 last Wednesday.

There are currently 161 COVID-19 patient in intensive care at Ontario hospitals, up from 156 on Tuesday and 128 seven days ago. Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott said Wednesday that only seven of the patients in the ICU have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

The number of COVID-19 patients who are hospitalized but not receiving treatment in the ICU is now 283, the province says, up from 174 one week ago.

Among this group of patients, 253 are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status and 30 are fully immunized, Elliott added.

About 82 per cent of people 12 and up in Ontario have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 75 per cent have both shots.#

 

'No one wants to go backwards'

A new report from Public Health Ontario on what the pandemic will look like in the fall and winter suggests that achieving herd immunity against COVID-19 will not be possible without an approved vaccine for children under 12, a development that is likely still months away.

The rising case counts and hospitalizations come as students prepare to return to the classroom for the first time since the spring. There is growing concern about how the more transmissible Delta variant will spread in schools when they reopen in less than two weeks.

“Individuals under 12 years of age will not be vaccinated when they are expected to return to in-person learning in September, and are therefore a population where Delta will circulate as more community-level public health measures are lifted," the PHO report read.

In a statement released today, the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) urged people who haven’t been vaccinated to stop putting themselves and others at risk, particularly vulnerable, unvaccinated children.

"After a taste of normalcy this summer, no one wants to go backwards. But that is a possibility if a significant number of Ontarians choose to remain unvaccinated. People who are unvaccinated are placing themselves and other at direct risk," the statement read.

"This is especially true for school children under the age of 12 who cannot yet be vaccinated. Given this risk, Ontario’s children’s hospitals are working with the provincial authorities to ensure ongoing access to paediatric critical care services through the fall and winter." 

Speaking to CP24 on Wednesday, Anthony Dale, the president and CEO of the OHA, said Ontario can't afford to have access to health-care impeded again as it was in the previous three waves of the pandemic.

"We can't afford to allow hospital activities, hospital operations to be disrupted a fourth time and impede the ability of people who need access to a whole range of other hospital-based services," he said. "So those that's what's motivated us to speak out now." 

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.