Ontario reports nearly 6,000 COVID-19 cases over the past 2 days

Ontario is reporting nearly 6,000 new cases of COVID-19 over the past two days. 

The province reports 3,041 cases and 12 deaths on Sunday and 2,938 cases and 10 deaths on Monday.

Locally for Monday, there are 906 new cases in Toronto, 533 in Peel, 391 in York Region, 230 in Ottawa and 140 in Durham.

Nearly 36,600 tests were completed on April 4 and nearly 46,400 tests on April 3. This is a significant drop from the over 59,000 tests completed on Saturday. Testing numbers are typically down early in the week.

The test positivity rate for Monday is 7.8 per cent. It is the highest positivity the province has reported since Jan. 12.

According to the latest numbers there are 942 COVID patients in the hospital and 494 in the ICU. The province currently has the highest number of ICU patients than at any point during the pandemic.

There are over 100 more ICU patients across the province than one week ago.

Ontario revealed two days’ worth of COVID-19 statistics on Monday after foregoing Sunday’s data drop for Easter.

The province also opted not to share statistics on Good Friday, but on Saturday reported there had been more than 3,000 cases of COVID-19 for two days running.

It marked the first the province topped 3,000 new cases since Jan. 17 and came as the number of patients in the Intensive Care Unit hit a pandemic record high.

There were 52,452 vaccine doses administered in the last 24 hour period.

As of 8:00 p.m. Sunday, 2,545,640 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered and 322,197 people have been fully vaccinated.

More than two million doses of vaccines are set to arrive in Canada this week as the country scrambles to contain the wildfire spread of more contagious variants of the virus.

Ontario is preparing to move into the next phase of its vaccine rollout and GTA mayors and doctors are urging the government to rethink the distribution to better target essential workers.

Mayors from Toronto and Peel, the two hardest hit regions in the province throughout the pandemic, are calling for a re-tooling of vaccine distribution to better target communities and workplaces that have seen a high spread of the virus.

The City of Toronto’s sixth mass vaccination clinic began administering doses this week.

The Hangar Sports and Events Centre in North York opened its doors on Monday morning and the clinic was already fully booked for its first day.

Students will also be back in their classrooms this week after the province put an end on Thursday to days of anxiety and speculation about a possible return to remote learning.

School boards had been urging students and teachers to take learning materials home before the Easter long weekend in case the government opted to shutter schools to control surging cases of COVID-19.

But Premier Doug Ford says schools will remain open, because closing them is disastrous for children’s mental health.

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With files from the Canadian Press