Ontario reports more than 600 new cases of COVID-19 as hospital admissions continue to rise

Ontario is reporting more than 600 new cases of COVID-19, representing a triple-digit jump in new infections from this time last week.

The Ministry of Health says that there were 639 new lab-confirmed instances of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus over the last 24 hours and zero deaths.

That is down from a recent high of 722 cases that was reported on Sunday but nonetheless marks a significant increase on the 526 cases reported last Monday.

The new cases come on fewer than 20,000 individual tests, pointing to a positivity rate of 2.8 per cent.

The lower test number is typical on Mondays as testing volumes tend to decline on weekends.

The rolling-seven day average now stands at 581, up nearly 24 per cent from last week and 104 per cent from two weeks ago.

It should be noted that the growth of transmission has slowed down from earlier this month when cases were doubling every eight days.

However, Ontario’s science table still pegs the overall reproductive number at 1.19.

That means that every 100 people who contract the virus will pass it on to another 119 people on average and cases will double every 22 days.

In an interview with CTV News Channel on Monday morning, the scientific director of the science table Dr. Peter Juni conceded that “we may need to have some new restrictions” to curtail the rise in cases but he said that those restrictions could “predominantly be aimed at those people who are vulnerable and that is the people who are unvaccinated.”

“The task at hand now is to really make sure that all people get vaccinated, especially those my age and older, because they will have a very high risk of ending up in in the ICU, perhaps one in 100 over the next six to 12 months, because of COVID-19,” he warned.

Hospital admissions on the rise

About 80 per cent of the latest cases (515) occurred in individuals who are either unvaccinated, partially vaccinated or for whom their vaccination status isn’t known.

Partially vaccinated and unvaccinated people represent about 34 per cent of Ontario’s population.

The remaining 125 cases were so-called breakthrough cases that occurred in fully vaccinated individuals.

Meanwhile, hospitalizations continue to slowly rise after being on the decline for months.

According to the latest Critical Care Services Ontario report another 13 people with COVID-19 were admitted to intensive care units over the last 24 hours, bringing the total number to 148.

At this time last week there were 119 COVID patients in intensive care units.

“We are seeing the case counts going up and that is concerning because there are some things that are just about to arrive, for example schools and postsecondary education institutions, opening in a couple of weeks, but more importantly we should be looking at the number of people who are hospitalized and getting really sick from this,” Dr. Susy Hota, who is an infectious disease specialist at the University Health Network, told CP24 on Monday afternoon. “While those are rising they are rising more slowly and so the hope is that we can still get vaccination numbers up, which protects people from the severe effects of this illness quite well and if we do that and are a little more cautious about our contacts with others hopefully we can keep this under control.”

TTC to host vaccination clinics

The recent rise in cases and hospitalizations has prompted the Ontario government to put its plans to lift virtually all remaining public health restrictions on hold indefinitely.

Efforts are also underway to target the roughly 18 per cent of eligible Ontarians who are yet to receive even one dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

As part of those efforts, the TTC says that it will hold vaccination clinics at Main Station and Victoria Park Station from Tuesday through Thursday in partnership with East Toronto Health Partners.

It says that the clinics will be open to everyone turning 12 or older this year with both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines available. The hours of operation for the clinics are from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day, as officials try to target essential workers from an area in the city with lower vaccination rates overall.

"As part of our plan to increase vaccine uptake and to make the vaccines as accessible as possible, we have been working with our Team Toronto partners across the city to bring the vaccines directly to people. These clinics at TTC stations are an excellent way to help make sure people have every opportunity to get vaccinated,” Mayor John Tory said in a press release. "I want to thank the TTC for helping host these clinics to help protect people and the progress we have made fighting the pandemic. I encourage unvaccinated residents to get their vaccine at one of these subway stations this week."

Of the new cases reported on Monday, 124 are in Toronto, 97 are in Peel Region, 91 are in York Region and 64 are in Hamilton. Elsewhere in the GTA, Durham reported 30 new cases and Halton reported 18.

In York Region it is the highest number of new cases reported in any single 24-hour period since May 26.

The number of active cases provincewide now stands at 5,126, which is the highest that number has been since the end of the third wave of the pandemic in the spring.