Ontario Reports 500-plus New COVID-19 Cases For First Time In Over A Month

The number of new COVID-19 cases in Ontario has surged past 500 for the first time in more than a month.

Health officials confirmed 563 new infections on Friday, the highest number of new cases since October 9.

A week ago the province reported just 419 new cases of the coronavirus.

Of the new cases, 314 are in individuals who are unvaccinated, partially vaccinated or whose vaccine status is unknown, while 249 are individuals who are fully vaccinated.

The increase also pushes the seven-day average of new cases to over 400 for the first time in two weeks and marks the fifth straight day the average has trended upward.

There are 225 people hospitalized with COVID-19 and 169 of those are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown status. Of the 129 people in ICU with COVID-19, 117 are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown status.

The Ministry of Education reports 67 new school-related cases of COVID-19 in the province with 59 of those being student cases. It’s the lowest number of single-day new cases reported since September 13.

There are currently 488 schools with at least one reported case of COVID-19, or roughly 10 per cent of the total number of schools across the province. Four schools remain closed due to an outbreak being declared.

For the third straight day five more deaths were attributed to COVID-19, raising the provincial total to 9,896.

The province says it administered 15,901 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday. Over 88 per cent of Ontarians 12-plus have now received at least one dose of the vaccine while almost 85 per cent across the province are fully vaccinated.

A total of 30,187 tests were processed in the previous 24-hour period with a positivity rate of 1.8 per cent, which is a slight increase over the previous day.

On Friday, the Public Health Agency of Canada said the country is bending the curve when it comes to the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Dr. Theresa Tam warned there could still be some “bumps in the trajectory” over the next few months.

Nationally, reported cases are now most commonly children under the age of 12 — a group that does not yet qualify to be vaccinated against COVID-19.