Ontario reports more than 1,200 new COVID-19 cases, confirms over 150 variant cases

Ontario is reporting 1,250 new COVID-19 cases and 22 deaths on Friday.

Locally, there are 337 new cases in Toronto, 167 in Peel and 129 in York Region.

The province completed just under 65,000 tests in the last 24 hour period compared to over 65,000 tests a day ago. Testing numbers are typically higher later in the week.

The high testing numbers keep the test positivity rate relatively low, increasing to 2.3 per cent from 2.1 on Thursday.

The province sees new infections rise over 1,000 after three consecutive days with daily increases in triple digits.

The latest provincial numbers confirm 155 additional cases of the B.1.1.7 variant first detected in the UK. It is the biggest single-day jump the province has seen in variant cases for the second day in a row.

There are now 799 cumulative cases of the B.1.1.7 variant, 31 cases of the B 1.351 variant first detected in South Africa and three cases of the P.1 variant first detected in Brazil.

Ontario reported 994 new COVID-19 cases and 10 additional deaths on Thursday.

The rolling seven-day average drops one case to 1,063 from 1,064. That number relatively unchanged from a week ago and the average has levelled off in the last three weeks after consistently declining each day since Jan. 11, where it peaked at 3,555.

As of 8:00 p.m. Thursday, 820,714 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered. The province administered 35,886 doses in the last 24 hour period, another single-day record.

There are now 269,063 people in the province that are fully vaccinated.

Health Minister Christine Elliott says the province will announce an update to its vaccine rollout on Friday, based on the expected Oxford-AstraZeneca doses as well as the recommendation on extended intervals between vaccine shots.

“I think it’s fair to say that we will be able to shorten that timeline, given the new volumes of vaccines coming in with AstraZeneca, and the extension of the first and second doses for both Pfizer and Moderna,” said Elliott.

Health Canada announced the approval of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine on Friday, which will likely speed the vaccination timeline even more.

Ontario will also announce what level of restrictions to place on the two GTA COVID-19 hot spots still under strict stay-at-home orders.

The province is mulling over requests from Toronto and Peel top doctors to move both regions into the ‘Grey-Lockdown’ of provincial pandemic restrictions when the orders are lifted on March 8.