There are more than 800 patients with COVID-19 in Ontario hospitals on Thursday, a 22 per cent week-over-week increase amid a sixth wave of the pandemic.

The Ministry of Health says there are 807 COVID-19 patients in hospitals across the province, up from 778 yesterday and a notable rise from 661 a week ago.

Today marks the highest number of hospitalizations since March 4 when 821 people were in hospitals with the virus.

The ministry says 48 per cent of hospital patients were admitted for COVID-19, while 52 per cent were admitted for other reasons but tested positive for the virus.

Among those currently hospitalized, 166 are in intensive care, up by one from a week ago.

Seventy-four per cent of ICU patients were admitted to hospital with COVID-19 and 26 per cent were admitted for other reasons but tested positive.

Epidemiologists not affiliated with the government have stated this week that the province has entered a sixth wave of the pandemic as cases and hospitalizations continue to rise.

“When you look at our wastewater, it's very clear. You can call it whatever you want, you know; whether it’s a resurgence of the Omicron wave we had or a sixth wave, the point is really to understand this is not a BA.2 wave,” Dr. Peter Juni, scientific director of Ontario's COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, told CP24 Tuesday night.

He said the highly infectious Omicron subvariant cannot be blamed for Ontario’s rising case count, but rather the increase in transmission can mostly be linked to the lifting of pandemic restrictions.

“The point here really is it's entirely our responsibility what we're seeing and we just got a little bit too much ahead of ourselves and here we are,” Juni said. “And we just have our task at hand to keep the slope of the wave upwards relatively flat so that we are not challenged again in our hospitals.”

The province reported six net new deaths today with five of the deaths occurring in the past month and one occurring more than a month ago.

One of the deaths was a long-term care home resident, according to the ministry.

The province says there have been a total of 12,433 virus-related fatalities since March 2020.

Ontario labs processed more than 18,300 tests in the past 24 hours, producing a positivity rate of 16 per cent, compared to 13.4 per cent a week ago.

The province confirmed 3,139 more coronavirus cases today, but health officials say that is an underestimate due to testing restrictions.

Among the latest cases, 1,722 of the individuals have received three doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, 840 have received two doses, 367 are partially vaccinated and 210 have an unknown vaccination status.

To date, 89 per cent of Ontarians aged five and older have received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, 86 per cent have received two doses and 51 per cent have received three doses.

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.