Ontario’s daily COVID-19 cases top 4,000, another 15 deaths
Posted April 12, 2021 10:03 am.
Last Updated April 12, 2021 12:01 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Ontario is reporting more than 4,000 new COVID-19 cases for the second day in a row as the number of patients in intensive care nears 620.
Health officials said there are 4,401 new infections on Monday, a slight drop from Sunday’s record high of 4,456 cases. It’s the third time in the past four days more than 4,000 new cases have been recorded.
Nearly 65 per cent of the new cases are in the GTA with Toronto recording 1,282 new infections, followed by Peel Region with 772, York Region with 330, and 224 in Durham Region.
Another 15 people have died in the province as a result of the virus, raising the death toll to 7,567.
Starting Monday, Ontario hospitals will be ramping down elective surgeries and non-urgent procedures to increase ICU capacity, which the province said could increase by up to 1,000 patient beds.
The province said 619 people out of 1,646 hospitalized are currently in intensive care units (ICU).
Health officials have said that the pandemic’s third wave is being driven by virus variants. Of the new cases reported Monday, nearly 50 per cent (2,162) are variants of concern — the majority of which is the variant first confirmed in the United Kingdom.
Nearly 50,000 tests were completed over the past 24 hours and the province reported a positivity rate of 9.5 per cent, a sharp increase from 7.7 per cent the previous day. The positivity rate is the highest since early January when a rate of 9.7 per cent was recorded.
More than 74,000 additional doses of a COVID-19 vaccine were given out on Sunday, and so far, over 333,400 Ontarians have been vaccinated.
With files from The Canadian Press
