Ontario continues to report over 4,000 new COVID-19 cases

Ontario reported 4,401 new COVID-19 cases and 15 more deaths on Monday.

The province’s daily COVID-19 infections have been soaring lately.

Sunday saw a record-breaking 4,456, Saturday had 3,813, Friday had 4,227, Thursday had 3,295, Wednesday had 3,251, and Tuesday had 3,065.

Of the latest cases, 1,282 are in Toronto, 772 are in Peel, and 564 are in York Region.

There are currently 1,646 people with COVID-19 in Ontario’s hospitals, including 619 in the ICU — an all-time high during the pandemic..

The province has administered 3.2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine so far, according to Health Minister Christine Elliott.

As of 8:00 p.m. yesterday, 3,214,465 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered.

Today’s numbers will be available at 10:30 a.m. at https://t.co/ypmgZbVRvn.

— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) April 12, 2021

Due to soaring admissions, Ontario’s hospitals were told to “ramp down” on elective and non-emergency surgeries in order to preserve critical care and human resource capacity.

On Friday, the province issued two emergency orders to help increase the number of available ICU beds. One order allow hospitals to transfer patients to other sites without their consent during “major surge events.”

The other grants Home and Community Care Support Services organizations as well as Ontario Health the authority to redeploy health care workers to hospitals that are at-risk of becoming overwhelmed.

• See also:
  • Ontario reports highest single-day COVID-19 case count since pandemic began
  • Ontario adds 700 more pharmacies to list of COVID-19 vaccination sites
  • How Toronto Police will enforce the Stay-at-Home order

Toronto has expanded vaccine eligibility at its city-run clinics to people as young as 50 that  live in certain hotspot neighbourhoods.

Outside of those identified postal codes, those who are 60 and above are eligible to book a vaccination appointment at the city’s clinics.

As well, people who are aged 55 and over can book an appointment to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine at designated pharmacies.

Ontario is currently under a province-wide Stay-at-Home. The measure went into effect on April 8 and will be in place for at least four weeks.

Premier Doug Ford has said he hopes to have 40% of adults across the province vaccinated by the time the Stay-at-home order ends.

To date, Ontario has seen 391,009 COVID-19 cases and 7,567 virus-related deaths.