Ontario reports fewest COVID-19 cases in over 2 weeks with a drop in testing

Ontario is reporting 2,578 new cases of COVID-19 and 29 deaths on Monday. It’s the fewest new cases since Jan. 1 and the fewest new deaths since Jan. 8.

Locally, there are 815 new cases in Toronto, 507 in Peel, 151 in York Region, 151 in Niagara, and 121 in Hamilton.

The drop in cases and deaths does come with a significant drop in testing with the province reporting over 40,300 tests completed. That is the lowest number of tests since Jan. 5.

The test positivity rate is 6.6 percent. That number is up from 5.2 on Sunday is the highest positivity rate since Jan. 12.

Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. David Williams, did express some optimism with regards to the province’s latest data.

Williams says we’re starting to see results from the lockdown.

“Some of the positive indications that we are making some headway at flattening the curve, we would move ourselves down to the one percent growth level, maybe heading down to zero percent,” he said.

“But early days. Don’t want to conclude that too quickly. Let’s see what happens over the next number of days, into this week ahead.”

William says virus outbreaks in long term care settings are also down. Ontario modelling had projected the province could be at 4,500 cases a day by now, though the province continues to hover around the 3,000 range.

The province reported 3,422 new cases and 69 deaths on Sunday.

The rolling seven-day average of new cases drops to 3,035. It is the seventh straight day that number has decreased after peaking at 3,555 on Jan. 11.

The province administered an additional 9,691 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. The total doses in the province now sit at 209,788 with the total number of vaccinations completed now at 21,752.

There is now a total of 240,364 confirmed cases in the province since the onset of the pandemic with 5,433 deaths. Of the confirmed cases 28,621 are active and 206,310 have been resolved.

There are 2,826 more resolved cases. The province has reported more resolved than new cases in six of the last seven days.

Among active cases, a record of 1,571 people is currently in the hospital. Hospitalizations are only up by eight patients since last Monday.

Among the hospitalized, 394 are in the ICU and 303 are on ventilators. The number of ICU patients is down one from a day ago.

Of the new deaths, 14 come from residents of long-term care homes. There are 127 new cases from long-term care home residents and 52 from staff.

Overall, the GTA is reporting fewer cases, 1,628, compared to the 2,022 cases reported a day ago. The GTA is responsible for just over 63 percent of the province’s new daily cases compared to just over 59 percent a day ago.

All regions in the GTA saw fewer cases except from Halton Region.

Toronto dropped to 815 from 1,035, Peel decreased to 507 from 585, York is down to 151 from 246 and Durham dropped to 76 from 97.

Halton saw 79 new cases compared to 59 on Sunday.