Ontario's new COVID-19 cases hover near 900 as top doctor urges patience
Ontario reported 914 new COVID-19 cases and 19 more deaths Friday.
This marks the fifth day in a row cases have been below 1,000. Friday’s count is higher compared to Thursday’s 870 cases, Wednesday’s 733, and Tuesday’s 699, but lower than Monday’s 916, Sunday’s 1,033, and Saturday’s 1,057.
Broken down by region, 214 of the latest cases are in Toronto, 69 are in Peel, and 57 are in Porcupine Health Unit in Northern Ontario.
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So far, more than 9.6 million doses of vaccine have been administered in Ontario. The province continues to give first doses to people 12 and up and second doses to people 80 and up as well as those with certain health conditions, health workers, and Indigenous adults.
As of 7:00 p.m. yesterday, 9,661,327 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered, including 168,322 doses administered yesterday.
Today’s numbers will be available at 10:30 a.m. at https://t.co/ypmgZbVRvn.
— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) June 4, 2021
On Thursday, Dr. David Williams, Chief Medical Officer of Health, said case counts aren’t low enough to proceed into Stage 1 of the reopening plan any earlier than the scheduled date of June 14. He suggested the slight increase in case counts could be due to gatherings over the Victoria Day long weekend.
Although infections are trending down from their peak in the third wave, cases of the Delta variant (B..617) are on the rise. Dr. Lawrence Loh, medical officer of health for Peel, said Thursday that some modelling forecasts predict it could become the dominant strain in Ontario within eight weeks.
Health officials have said they may speed up second dose eligibility to bring Delta infections under control, but that depends if the province can secure enough vaccine supply.
To date, Ontario has seen 534,675 total COVID-19 cases and 8,820 deaths.