Mainaklot: Ontario reports more than 200 COVID-19 cases for 2nd straight day

Ontario reported 226 COVID-19 cases on Friday, bringing the total number of cases in the province to 550,178.

“Locally, there are 62 new cases in Toronto, 35 in the Region of Waterloo, 24 in Peel Region, 13 in York Region, 13 in Hamilton and 13 in Halton Region,” Health Minister Christine Elliott said.

It marks the second day in a row the province reported more than 200 cases after weeks of being below that level.

For comparison, last Friday 192 cases were reported.

Eleven new deaths were also announced on July 30, bringing the provincial virus-related death toll to 9,339.

A total of 539,348 coronavirus cases are considered resolved, which is up by 148.

Nearly 21,000 additional tests were completed. Ontario has now completed a total of 16,551,446 tests and 6,956 remain under investigation.

The province indicated that the positivity rate for the last day was 1.1 per cent, which is down from Thursday’s report, when it was 1.3 per cent, and up from last Friday’s report, when it was 0.9 per cent.

Provincial figures showed there are 117 people in intensive care due to COVID-19 (down by four), 77 of whom are on a ventilator (down by two).

As of 8 p.m. Thursday, 19,377,608 COVID-19 vaccine doses had been administered in Ontario, marking an increase of 83,907. Of those, 67,605 were second doses.

In Ontario, 80.2 per cent of those 12-plus have received at least one vaccine dose and 68.4 per cent are fully vaccinated.