Ontario reports highest COVID-19 positivity rate since pandemic started
Posted April 13, 2021 10:07 am.
Last Updated April 13, 2021 12:05 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Ontario reported the highest COVID-19 positivity rate since the pandemic started in March of last year, as the provincial government grapples with controlling the third wave.
The record-high positivity rate of 10.3 per cent on Tuesday eclipsed the previous record of 9.7 on Jan. 4, with just over 42,000 tests being completed over the past 24 hours.
Health officials reported 3,670 new infections, a drop from 4,401 cases the day before. A majority of the cases were in the GTA, with Toronto recording 1,016, followed by 613 in Peel Region, 519 in York Region and 196 in Durham Region.
Another 15 people have died in the province as a result of the virus, raising the death toll to 7,582.
The number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care units (ICU) jumped to 626, setting yet another record high, and 422 of those patients are on a ventilator. Currently, 1,822 people have been hospitalized in the province.
Health Minister Christine Elliott said Monday the government has been looking at ways to boost hospital capacity and staffing levels.
Provincial officials have said hundreds of critical care beds will be added this week to treat the rising number of patients in the ICU, as the more transmissible variants fuel the third wave.
The province has recorded 20,777 total cases of a variant of concern, with 20,487 of them being the variant first detected in the United Kingdom.
So far, 335,262 Ontarians have received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, with the addition of nearly 96,000 doses administered on Monday. Although the Ford government has previously it as the capacity to administer 150,000 doses a day, that hasn’t been the case yet.
With files from The Canadian Press
