20 additional deaths reported as Ontario surpasses 300K COVID-19 cases

Ontario reported 1,062 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday as the province passed a sobering milestone.

It’s the fifth straight day more than 1,000 new infections were confirmed, bringing the provincial total to 300,816 since the pandemic began.

The seven-day rolling average of new cases sits at 1,104, which is an increase from 1,031 last Sunday.

Toronto reported 259 new cases while Peel Region added 201 new infections to its total. York Region reported just 86 new cases – the fewest number of new cases since moving into the Red-Control zone last week.

An additional 23 variants of concern were also confirmed in the province with 528 cases of the variant first discovered in the UK. There are 27 variant strains of the virus first confirmed in South African and just three of the variant first discovered in Brazil. The total number of new variants of concern increased by 158 over the last seven days.

Another 20 people have died as a result of COVID-19, none involving residents in a long-term care setting, leaving the provincial death just shy of 7,000.

Provincial officials processed 49,185 tests in the last 24 hour period with more than 18,000 samples remaining to be confirmed.

Another 19,167 vaccines were administered on Saturday, bringing the provincial total up to 687,271. Just over 260,000 Ontarians have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

While the number of hospitalizations fell to 627, likely due to the lack of full reporting from hospitals on the weekend, the number of COVID-19 patients in the ICU rose to 289 while those on ventilators also increased to 185.