Ontario reports nearly 3,500 new COVID-19 cases with drop in positivity rate

Ontario is reporting 3,480 new COVID-19 cases and 24 additional deaths on Wednesday.

The province says “case counts for some health units in the Central West Region, including Hamilton and Niagara, may be higher due to a data catch-up process.”

The test positivity rate is 7.2 per cent, down from 10.2 a day ago. The province reported a record test positivity rate of 10.9 on Monday.

There were 50,194 tests completed in the last 24 hour period, a significant increase from the 34,000 completed a day ago. Testing numbers are typically down earlier in the week.

Locally, there are 961 new cases in Toronto, 589 in Peel, 341 in Niagara and 290 in York Region.

Ontario reported 3,265 cases and 29 deaths on Tuesday.

The rolling seven-day average is down to 3,783 from 4,327 a week ago. It is the lowest average in over two weeks.

There are now 2,281 people hospitalized in the province due to COVID-19 with 877 in the ICU.

Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown said Wednesday that the city’s ICUs are well beyond capacity.

“We are in a permanent cycle where patients have to be sent to hospitals across Southern Ontario,” says Brown. “And that’s not a sustainable situation to be in.”

Brampton’s weekly COVID positivity rate remains close to a record that was set last week, sitting at 22.2 per cent, according to Dr. Lawrence Loh. That number is more than triple the provincial rate.

There were 116,173 vaccine doses administered in the last 24 hour period.

As of 8:00 p.m. Tuesday, 4,907,203 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered.

Rather than creating its own paid sick leave program, the Ford government is offering to double the federal paid sick day payments to $1,000 a week; a proposal the feds say is simply not good enough.

Ontario’s Labour Minister, Monte McNaughton, confirmed Tuesday that the province won’t legislate provincial paid sick leave as Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy says doubling down on the federal government’s plan would be the fastest way to enhance sick leave for provincial workers.

680 NEWS obtained a letter sent to federal Finance Minster Chrystia Freeland from Finance Minister Bethlenfalvy, in it Mr. Bethlenfalvy says the provincial government is prepared to make this commitment “immediately” and pay the full cost of the top-up.

In response, the federal finance minister’s office told 680 NEWS “When Ontario is ready to mandate sick leave in provincially-regulated businesses, as we have done for federally-regulated businesses, we will be there to help.”