Ontario reports more than 500 new COVID-19 cases

Ontario is reporting 525 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday and two new deaths.

According to Health Minister Christine Elliott, 434 cases are in individuals who are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status and 91 are in fully vaccinated individuals.

The province reported five additional deaths but says that “due to a data clean-up, three of the five deaths being reported today occurred more than two months ago.”

The test positivity rate is 3.1 per cent, up slightly from 3 per cent one week ago.

There are 680 more resolved cases.

The seven-day average is now 702, up 17 per cent from one week ago and 48 per cent from two weeks ago.

There are now 158 people in the ICU due to COVID-19. Of the ICU patients, 148 are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status while 10 are fully vaccinated.

There have been 20,757,954 vaccine doses have been administered across the province. Nearly 83 per cent of Ontarians 12 and older have received one dose and nearly 76.3 per cent have two doses.

Ontario is expected to announce plans for a vaccine certificate system this week, government sources said on Friday.

The sources said the planned system — which would limit access to certain non-essential services based on vaccination status — will go to cabinet for discussion before an announcement is made.

Ontario’s chief medical officer Dr. Kieran Moore will be holding his regularly scheduled COVID update at 3 p.m. on Tuesday.