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Ontario has posted three days of under-1,000 daily COVID-19 cases but testing shows variants now represent about 7% of those infections, Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Barbara Yaffe says.
If variants of concern (VOC) — United Kingdom, South African or Brazilian mutations — hit 10%, then public health officials will considering hitting an “emergency brake” on the province’s move to a colour-coded COVID-19 framework, she said.
“That’s why right now the public health lab is actually … testing every single positive case of COVID-19 now for (genome) sequencing,” Yaffe said Tuesday. “From February 3 to now, I think they’ve tested over 14,000 positive specimens and 7% of them are variants of concern.”
There have been 319 confirmed VOC cases out of a pandemic total of 287,736 cases of COVID-19.
Ontario reported 309 cumulative cases of the U.K. variant, nine cases of the South African variant, including an outbreak at one Mississauga condo identified over the weekend, and one case of the Brazilian variant that was confirmed in Toronto.
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There were 904 new cases of COVID-19 Tuesday and 1,012 resolved infections.
The province administered 27,005 tests with a 3.6% positivity rate in the previous 24-hour period.
Thirteen additional deaths were linked to COVID-19 Tuesday — five were in long-term-care (LTC) residents.
COVID-19 patients in hospital numbered 742, including 292 in intensive care and 201 on ventilators.
The public health measures that have been put in place are having a positive impact on the numbers, Yaffe said.
“But if we let loose, we are going to see another pandemic wave and possibly worse,” Yaffe said.
Ontario administered a relatively modest 5,053 doses of vaccines on Family Day Monday, and so far the province has fully vaccinated 186,934 residents with the required two doses.
