Ontario is reporting more than 2,200 new cases of COVID-19 as the number of virus-related hospitalizations surpasses 1,000.

Provincial health officials reported 2,202 new infections today, up from the 2,123 logged on Monday but down from the record 2,432 confirmed on Dec. 17.

The rolling seven-day average of new infections in Ontario is now 2,265, up from 1,927 one week ago.

With just 45,000 tests completed over the past 24 hours, the per cent positivity rate is also up to five per cent. This marks a notable drop in testing in the province after a record 69,412 tests were processed on Dec. 15.

Today's per cent positivity rate is the highest it has been in the last six days but is still down from 5.4 per cent last Tuesday, when only 39,566 tests were completed on the previous day.

An additional 21 virus-related deaths were also confirmed by the province today, including 11 residents of long-term care homes. The number of active outbreaks in long-term care homes is now 173, up from 139 last week.

There are currently 19,300 active infections in the province, 2,000 more active cases than the number reported just seven days ago.

Of the new cases reported today, 636 are in Toronto, 504 are in Peel, 218 are in York Region and 172 are in Windsor-Essex County.

Number of hospitalized patients exceeds 1,000

According to the latest information released by the province, there are now 1,005 people infected with COVID-19 who are receiving care in Ontario hospitals and 273 of those patients are in intensive care. At this point last week, there were 921 COVID-19 patients in Ontario hospitals and 249 in intensive care.

The province's ICU numbers typically lag behind what is reported by Critical Care Services Ontario, which said there were 267 COVID-19 patients in intensive care last Tuesday and that there are currently 285 in the ICU as of today.

Today marks the first time virus-related hospital admissions have surpassed 1,000 in Ontario during the second wave of the pandemic. During the first wave, the number of patients hospitalized with the disease caused by the novel coronavirus peaked at 1,043 on May 5.

On Monday, the province’s modelling table released new projections that paint a troubling picture of the situation in Ontario hospitals. The province’s experts said Ontario is struggling to control COVID-19 case growth.

The modelling indicated that in all possible scenarios, the number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care units at Ontario hospitals will exceed 300 within the next 10 days, which will result in the cancellation of more surgeries and a reduction in access to necessary care, Dr. Adalsteinn Brown, co-chair of the province’s COVID-19 science table, said at Monday’s news conference.

In an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19 infections in the community, Premier Doug Ford has announced that he will be implementing a provincewide lockdown beginning on Dec. 26.

Non-essential businesses in all regions of Ontario will be forced to close their stores to in-person shopping at 12:01 a.m. on Boxing Day, lockdown restrictions similar to the ones in place in the spring during the first wave of the pandemic. The lockdown is in effect for 28 days in southern regions of the province and 14 days for residents of northern Ontario.

More than 70 per cent of all new infections are in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) and Toronto, Peel Region, York Region, Hamilton, and Windsor-Essex are already in the lockdown zone of the province's reopening framework.

Some have been critical of the Ford government's decision to wait until Saturday to impose more restrictions provincewide as daily infections continue to pile up in the province.

Infectious diseases expert Dr. Isaac Bogoch said while you "can't just spring" this type of lockdown on people without advance notice, delaying restrictions will make it more difficult to bring case numbers down.

"We are seeing a sustained number of cases... the hospital system is being overwhelmed. It is a very, very difficult setting and the longer you carry on with the status quo, the more challenging it is going to be and the harder it is going to be to turn the ship around," he said.

New strain detected in UK is ‘massive threat,’ Ford says

On Tuesday, Premier Doug Ford reiterated his call for the federal government to require more testing for passengers who arrive at Canadian airports from outside the country.

“There is just not enough to protect us from the threats coming in,” Ford said. “Without further action by the federal government at our borders, we remain at extreme risk right now.”

Ford said the province plans to move ahead with further testing at airports with, or without, the federal government.

“I’ve directed our officials to begin preparing the infrastructure necessary for testing at our airports and I hope we won’t have to go it alone but we are prepared to do that if we must. We just can’t wait any longer,” he said, adding that pre-departure screening is something he has urged Ottawa to implement.

“This new strain of COVID-19 is a massive threat that we just can’t take lightly and we need to do everything possible to prevent it from getting in to Canada.”

A mutation of the COVID-19 virus circulating in parts of England has prompted several countries, including Canada, to suspend all incoming flights from the United Kingdom.

The new mutation appears to be significantly more transmissible than previous strains, Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Ontario’s associate chief medical officer of health, said Tuesday.

“COVID-19 is a virus. It is not unusual for viruses to change and mutate,” she said, noting that most of the time, the mutation has “no impact at all.”

“This particular mutation that’s happened in the UK was actually first identified back in the fall, I believe in September, but in the last month we’ve seen a rapid increase in cases in Southeast England, particularly London and the vast majority of cases are that mutation.

She said in this case, there is a mutation in the spike protein, which is what the virus uses to invade human cells.

“There has been a significant mutation in the spike protein that is making it more efficient for the virus to get into the human cell. That is the theory of why we believe it is more transmissible,” Yaffe said.

“Obviously it is preferable we don’t get the strain in Ontario because it is more transmissible… It is a good thing that we are going into this shutdown so that it can help reduce any transmission of the virus and if the mutant virus enters, of the mutant virus as well.”

Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott said that while the mutated virus has not yet been detected in the province, if it were to begin circulating in Ontario, the consequences would be serious.

“What we would see would be many more cases of COVID-19,” she said. “We would see many more people with very ill health being hospitalized, putting a greater risk on our hospital capacity.”

New cases in the GTHA:

Toronto: 636

Peel Region: 504

York Region: 218

Durham Region: 86

Halton Region: 48

Hamilton: 95