Ontario reports fewer than 2,000 new COVID-19 cases for 1st time since March

Ontario is reporting 1,616 new COVID-19 cases and 17 additional deaths on Tuesday.

It is the first time the province has reported fewer than 2,000 new cases since March 24.

With the 17 new fatalities, Canada’s official COVID-19 death toll has reached 25,000. Canada surpassed 20,000 deaths at the end of January.

The province’s test positivity rate is 7.6 per cent, down from 8.5 per cent a week ago.

There were 22,915 tests completed in the last 24 hour period, down from nearly 25,000 a day ago. There were more than 28,000 tests completed on Tuesday last week. Testing numbers are typically down earlier in the week.

Locally, there are 472 new cases in Toronto, 360 in Peel, 116 in York Region, 114 in Hamilton and 102 in Durham.

The province reported 2,170 cases and 4 deaths on Monday. It was the smallest number of deaths the province has reported since March 22.

The rolling seven-day average of new cases is down to 2,287. That number has decreased everyday since April 29 and it is the lowest seven-day average since March 27.

Resolved cases have now outnumbered new cases every day since late April. There were 2,502 more resolved cases reported, dropping the active case count by nearly 900.

There are now 1,484 people hospitalized in the province with 764 in the ICU. Hospitalizations are down nearly 300 from one week ago.

The latest provincial numbers confirm 2,155 additional cases of the B.1.1.7 variant, 10 additional cases of the P.1 variant and 2 additional cases of the B.1351 variant.

There were 109,032 vaccine doses administered in the last 24 hour period.

As of 8:00 p.m. Monday, 7,286,177 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered.

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Ontario expanded COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to anyone 18 and older on Tuesday.

Eligible individuals (born in 2003 or earlier) are now able to book at mass immunization clinics through the province’s online booking portal or call centre.

Appointments can also be made directly through public health units that use their own booking system, though eligibility may differ from the provincial system.

In Peel Region, residents aged 16 and older are able to book through the local booking system.

Halton Region will make residents 18 and older eligible on Wednesday.

The Ford government is holding off on reopening outdoor amenities during the emergency stay-at-home order, while at the same time offered some hope that outdoor settings could get back to normal ahead of schedule.

The province decided to close all recreational amenities back on April 16 and later announced that they will remain shuttered through the early portion of the shutdown, which expires on June 2.

The province’s four largest health-care unions are accusing the Ford government of not valuing front-line workers.

Union leaders are calling for the immediate repeal of Bill 124, which they call “wage-suppression legislation.”