Ontario reported its lowest positive COVID-19 test rate in six months on Wednesday, along with 11 new net deaths on Wednesday.
Ontario labs processed 11,234 tests in the last 24 hours, compared to almost 13,000 tests a week ago. As a result, today’s positivity rate dropped to 6.4% compared to 7.2% yesterday and 8.3% seven days ago.
Today’s positivity rate is the lowest in the province since December 15, 2021, when it was six percent.
Over the past month, COVID-19 spread indicators have been declining in most metrics, including wastewater signal data, test positivity, and hospitalizations.
“We know that COVID is still there. That being said, it’s very different now than it was a month and two months ago. hospitalizations, ICU admissions, wastewater surveillance. I mean, we are far below the entire province, “infectious disease specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch told CP24 on Wednesday morning.
The province has confirmed 1,013 more cases today, but health officials continue to say the daily count of cases is an understatement due to limited access to PCR tests.
The Ministry of Health today confirmed 11 new deaths, seven in the last month and four deaths more than a month ago.
Two of the last deaths were residents of long-term residences.
Since March 2020, the province has reported 13,304 virus-related deaths.
The ministry says there are 522 patients with the virus in Ontario hospitals, 200 fewer since a week ago.
Of those hospitalized, 114 are in intensive care, down from 127 a week ago.
The ministry says 40% of these hospitalized patients were admitted for COVID-19-related reasons and 60% were admitted for other reasons, but later tested positive for the virus.
Meanwhile, 69 percent of these ICU patients were taken to hospital for virus-related reasons and 31 percent were admitted for other reasons, but tested positive for the virus.
Among the latest cases reported today, 598 of the individuals received three or four doses of a vaccine against COVID-19, 172 received two doses, 115 are partially or unvaccinated, and 128 have an unknown vaccination status.
More than 14,700 doses of vaccine were administered in the province yesterday.
To date, 90% of Ontario residents aged five and over have received a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, 87% have received two and 52% have received three.
The numbers used in this story are in the COVID-19 Daily Epidemiological Summary of the Ontario Ministry of Health. The number of cases for any city or region may differ slightly from what the province reports, because local units report figures at different times.