Ontario reports more than 1,600 new COVID-19 cases, 10 additional deaths

Ontario reported 1,631 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, a sharp rise from 1,299 cases confirmed the day before.

It is the highest case count since Feb. 5 when 1,670 cases were reported.

However, the province noted that Monday’s daily case count was higher than expected due to a “data catch-up process related to the provincial CCM system.”

Another 10 people died as a result of the virus, bringing the provincial death toll to 7,077.

Most of the new infections were in Toronto (568), followed by Peel Region (322) and York Region (119).

The province also reported a test positivity rate of 3.4 per cent, an increase from 3.1 per cent on Sunday.

The latest provincial update was based on 38,063 completed tests.

According to health officials, 626 people are hospitalized due to the virus, with 282 of those patients in intensive care.

The province said 994 more people have recovered from the virus in the province.

Another 21,882 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine were administrated in the province for a total of 912,486 doses overall.

An additional 63 cases of variants of concern were also confirmed in the province, bringing the provincial total up to 935. Of those cases, 879 are of the variant first discovered in the United Kingdom, while 39 are the variant first found in South Africa and 17 of the variant strain first reported in Brazil.

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The latest update came as the province lifted its stay-at-home order for Toronto, Peel Region and North Bay on Monday.

The three regions were the last ones still under the order, and are transitioning back to the government’s colour-coded pandemic response framework.

Toronto and Peel entered the “grey-lockdown” category — most restrictive level of pandemic measures– while North Bay went into the second most restrictive “red-control” level.

With files from The Canadian Press