Ontario confirmed 23 net new COVID-19 deaths in the past two days as 1,130 patients are currently hospitalized with the virus.
The Ministry of Health released coronavirus data for yesterday and today due to the Good Friday Holiday.
It reported 13 net new deaths on Friday and 10 deaths today, raising the province’s death toll to 12,629.
Five of the 23 deaths were among long-term care home residents.
The ministry says there were 1,427 patients being treated with the virus in hospitals on Friday, and that number dropped to 1,130 patients today.
Of those in hospital today, 45 per cent were admitted for COVID-19-related reasons and 55 per cent were admitted for other reasons but subsequently tested positive for the virus.
In addition, 182 of those hospitalized patients were in intensive care Friday and three more were added to ICU today.
On Thursday, Ontario’s Science Advisory Table released new COVID-19 projections and said that hospitalizations could surpass 3,000 by May in the most likely scenario, reaching levels experienced during the height of the fifth wave of the pandemic this past winter.
The table also projected that the number of COVID patients in ICU will rise but that the ultimate peak will likely be lower than it was during the last wave.
Ontario labs processed nearly 19,300 PCR tests in the past 24 hours, generating a positivity rate of 18.5 per cent compared to 18.4 per cent a week ago, according to the ministry.
In addition, the province confirmed 4,201 infections today, however that continues to be an undercount due to limited testing. On Friday, the province confirmed 4,332 new cases.
Among the new cases reported today, 2,668 individuals have received three doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, 912 have received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, 455 are not fully vaccinated and 166 have an unknown vaccination status.
Earlier this week, the head of Ontario’s Science Advisory Table said that daily case counts appear to have slowed down amid the sixth wave of the pandemic, based on wastewater data.
"We know we slowed down. Is this now a plateau, and we stay on a high plateau? Do we go up again, especially after Easter? It will depend on us. Or do we start to go down? We need to have a few more days of data to be a bit more confident, but by all means, it looks much better than six, seven days ago," Dr. Peter Jüni told CP24 on Wednesday.
Jüni said that the slowdown could be attributed to several factors, including accumulated immunity through vaccination and infection.
So far, 90 per cent of Ontarians aged five years and older have received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, 86 per cent have received two doses and 51 per cent have received three doses.
The numbers used in this story are found in the Ontario Ministry of Health's COVID-19 Daily Epidemiologic Summary. The number of cases for any city or region may differ slightly from what is reported by the province, because local units report figures at different times.
