Ontario’s COVID-19 positivity rate highest since pandemic started, daily cases near 4,500

Ontario recorded its highest COVID-19 positivity rate since the pandemic started, as daily cases topped 4,000 for the sixth day in a row on Monday.

Another 19 people have died in the province as a result of the virus, raising the death toll to 7,735.

Health officials reported 4,447 new infections, a rise from 4,250 cases the day before. It was the ninth day in the past 11 days that the province had more than 4,000 daily cases.

Toronto has had more than 1,000 cases in 10 of the past 11 days with 1,299 reported Monday, followed by 926 in Peel Region, 577 in York Region, and 227 in Durham Region.

Nearly 42,900 tests were completed in the past 24 hours and the province reported a positivity rate of 10.5 per cent, surpassing the previous high of 10.3 per cent on April 13 of this year.

For the past three days, hospitalizations continue to be over 2,000. According to the latest update, 2,202 people were currently being treated in hospital and 755 of those patients were in the intensive care units (ICU). Over half (516) of the ICU patients are on a ventilator.

An additional 2,741 cases of a variant of concern were reported with the total caseload now at 36,895 — a majority of the the cases are of the variant first discovered in the United Kingdom.

The province administered nearly 67,000 additional doses of a COVID-19 vaccine on Sunday, and so far, more than 346,000 Ontarians have received two doses of the vaccine.