Ontario is reporting more than 1,500 new COVID-19 cases today as the province’s Science Advisory Table releases alarming new data about how the Omicron variant is spreading in the community.
The province typically reports a notable drop in new cases early in the week but today, officials confirmed 1,536 new infections, up from 1,476 cases on Sunday and 887 last Monday.
Of the new cases confirmed today 601 are in those who are unvaccinated, 33 involve people who are partially immunized, 809 are in those with at least two doses, and 93 involve people with an unknown vaccination status.
The seven-day rolling average of new infections has now hit 1,328, up from 940 last Monday.
Despite the surge in infections, Ontario has not yet seen a corresponding spike in deaths and intensive care admissions, which typically lag behind new infections by a few weeks.
Ontario reported only one new virus-related death today, bringing the province's COVID-19 death toll to 10,079.
Virus-related intensive care admissions are now at 161, down from 168 last Monday.
Ontario's Science Advisory Table released new data Monday confirming that the effective reproductive (RT) number for Omicron in Ontario is 3.32, meaning that every 100 new Omicron cases will go on to generate 332 secondary infections. All other variants of the virus combined have an RT value of 1.27.
The table also estimates about 20 per cent of all new cases Monday were Omicron, based on the number of positive samples that no longer show a mutation present in the Delta variant which was until recently found in virtually all positive cases in the province.
The doubling time for Omicron in Ontario is now projected to be every three days.
The head of the science table, Dr. Peter Juni, warned that the variant of concern will become the dominant variant in Ontario this week.
"This is historical. This is unprecedented," he said of Omicron in Ontario. "People cannot imagine the sheer scale of what we are talking about here."
He added that any suggestion that the variant causes milder infection is a "myth."
"We need to forget about wishful thinking here with mild disease. We simply don't know," he said.
With 38,221 tests processed over the past 24 hours, Ontario is reporting a provincewide positivity rate of 5.5 per cent, up significantly from 3.5 per cent one week ago.
Ontario's known, active COVID-19 caseload now stands at 11,538, up from 8,439 seven days ago.
The public health units with the highest number of infections today include Toronto (255), Kingston (142), York Region (139), Ottawa (116), Peel Region (89), Windsor (82), Halton Region (75), and Simcoe Muskoka (73).
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.
