Ontario reported 1,074 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday along with 11 more deaths, on the smallest testing volume processed in more than three weeks.
Ontario reported 1,268 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday and 1,747 on Sunday.
The seven-day rolling average of cases now stands at 1,334, up from 1,187 one week ago.
Provincial labs processed just 28,526 tests in the past 24 hours, generating a positivity rate of 4.5 per cent, the highest that rate has reached since Feb. 2.
Another 27,428 specimens remain under investigation.
One of the 11 deaths reported involved a resident of the long-term care system.
There have now been 7,173 centrally-confirmed deaths due to COVID-19 since March 2020, along with 300,769 recoveries.
An additional 12,506 cases are still considered active across Ontario, up from 11,223 one week ago.
Across the GTA, Toronto reported 313 new cases, Peel Region reported 199, York reported 101 and Durham Region reported 27 new cases.
Halton Region also reported 27 new cases and Hamilton reported 66.
On Monday, Ontario’s hospital lobby said that using data from the COVID-19 Science Table, it was clear to them that the province has entered a third wave of coronavirus infection.
Asked about the province’s prospects on Tuesday, infectious diseases specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch said
“If you look at the 7 day average, on March 6 it was around 1,000. By about March 14 and 15 it was about 1,300. That’s a real rise in cases, you can’t ignore it,” he said. “Is this going to be a third wave or is this going to be a smaller wave, a wave-let, and the answer is who knows.”
But he said that while our ongoing vaccine rollout was not far along enough to temper rising case counts in the next month and the variants are still spreading, we could suppress the impact of the virus later in the month with concerted action.
“We’re on the cusp of a third wave – you can call it a third wave, but how high that gets is really up to us - on our government, on our public health leadership and on our individual behaviour.”
On Tuesday, the COVID-19 Science Table, the body of epidemiologists tasked with developing modelling projections for Ontario, estimated that the number of variant of concern cases reported in Ontario surpassed the number of older or "wild" strain cases discovered for the first time.
They said at least 53 per cent of cases reported Tuesday were variants of concern, with 47 per cent coming from older strains of the coronavirus.
Meanwhile, the number of people the Ministry of Health says are in hospital due to COVID-19 has shot up by 160 over the past two days.
There are now 761 people receiving treatment in hospitals, with 292 in intensive care and 194 of those breathing with the help of a ventilator.
But a count of data from local public health units and hospital networks on Tuesday morning found 885 people receiving care due to COVID-19.
A Toronto intensive care unit doctor citing data from Critical Care Services Ontario said there 346 patients in intensive care due to COVID-19 on Tuesday, with 209 on ventilators.
The number of coronavirus variant of concern cases fully confirmed through whole genomic sequencing rose by another 27 cases to 1,211.
At least 9,100 other positive specimens have screened positive for a variant of concern during initial testing and await confirmation.
Public Health Ontario says at least 40 per cent of cases detected in the past several days screened positive for a variant of concern.
Meanwhile, Ontario’s vaccination efforts continue to accelerate.
The province says it administered 51,000 shots on Monday, nearing the record it set on March 13 of 53,000 shots administered.
There have now been 1,243,000 shots given since Dec. 14, 2020, and 288,918 people have completed a full two-dose inoculation.
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.
