Ontario reports 16 additional COVID-19 deaths, 1,000-plus new cases Saturday

Ontario is reporting 16 more people have died from COVID-19 as the number of new cases exceeds 1,000 for the fourth straight day.

Another 1,185 new coronavirus infections were confirmed Saturday, bringing the provincial total just shy of 300,000 cases.

Health officials say 984 more people have recovered from the virus, the first time since Nov. 16, 2020 fewer than 1,000 resolved cases have been reported.

Toronto reported 331 new cases – the 10th straight day the number has exceeded 300 – while Peel Region reported 220 cases. York Region reported 119 new cases – the third straight triple-digit daily increase and the highest since the region entered the Red-Control zone.

Ontario reported 42 additional variants of concern on Saturday, bringing the provincial total up to 535. Of those, 508 are of the variant first discovered in the UK while 25 are the variant first found in South Africa and just two of the variant strain first reported in Brazil.

For the first time in three days, one new death was reported in a long-term care setting. The additional deaths bring the provincial total up to 6,960.

Provincial officials completed 59,416 tests in the previous 24 hour period with almost 28,000 samples remaining to be tested.

Another 24,339 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were administered on Friday – a new daily high, bringing the total number of vaccines given across the province to more than 668,000.

Hospitalizations remained virtually unchanged at 680. Of those, 276 COVID patients are in the ICU with 182 on a ventilator.