Ontario’s Daily COVID-19 Cases Spike To Above 1,500, Another 14 Deaths Reported

Ontario reported 1,508 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, a rise from 1,074 cases confirmed the day before.

Another 14 people have died as a result of COVID-19 in Ontario, bringing the provincial death toll to 7,187.

It is the 11th day in a row that the province has reported more than 1,000 new cases, and the highest daily case count since March 8, when 1,631 cases were confirmed.

Health Minister Christine Elliott said there were 542 new infections in Toronto, 253 in Peel Region and 107 in York Region.

The latest update came as the province marked once year since the Ford government first announced a state of emergency in an effort to control the virus. A second state of emergency was declared on Jan. 12 of this year.

While the province has ramped up its vaccine rollout, the Science Table COVID-19 Advisory for Ontario says the province is now in the third wave of the pandemic.

According to recent data, variants of concern now account for almost half of current cases and continue to trend upwards while the spread of earlier variants dip.

However, despite the stats, the province’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. David Williams, said that it was still “to be determined” if the third wave had begun.

Meanwhile, an additional four cases of variants of concern were reported since the previous daily update on Tuesday, bringing the provincial total up to 1,215. A majority of the cases (1,134) are of the variant first detected in the United Kingdom.

The province tested 49,128 people for the virus on Wednesday and administered another 58,202 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. So far, 1,301,334 doses have been administered overall.

Another 1,488 people have recovered from the virus, but 741 remain hospitalized and 300 of those patients are in intensive care.