Ontario reported 22 new COVID-19 deaths on Thursday, as hospitalizations held at a level close to the highest point seen in the sixth wave.
The Ministry of Health said all 22 deaths occurred in the past 30 days.
Five involved residents of the long-term care system.
The province has reported 137 deaths in the past week and 373 COVID-19 deaths in the past 30 days.
There have been 12,772 COVID-19 deaths in Ontario since March 2020.
There were 1,734 patients admitted to Ontario hospitals testing positive for COVID-19 on Thursday, up 4 from Wednesday and 72 from one week ago.
Of those, 211 were in intensive care, down eight from Wednesday and up eight from one week ago.
Ninety-two patients are breathing with the help of a ventilator, down seven from Wednesday and unchanged from one week ago.
Meanwhile, the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table says wastewater surveillance data shows viral prevalence increasing in all regions of the province except southwestern Ontario and eastern Ontario including Ottawa.
The overall wastewater signal now appears to be at its highest point in the entire sixth wave.
Of the 1,827 cases confirmed through PCR testing on Wednesday, 275 involved unvaccinated or partially vaccinated people, 307 involved people with two doses of vaccine, 1,125 involved people with three doses of vaccine and 120 involved people whose vaccination status is not known.
The high number of three-dose individuals testing positive for COVID-19 correlates with the fact that the most heavily boosted populations (seniors 70+, the immunocompromised, health workers) are also the ones still eligible for free PCR testing in the province.
Provincial labs processed 23,230 test specimens in the past 24 hours, generating a positivity rate of 15.2 per cent.
The Ministry of Health says 34,168 people received COVID-19 vaccine doses on Tuesday.
Of those, 1,216 received first doses, 1,625 received second doses, 4,202 received third doses and 27,125 received fourth doses.
The numbers used in this story are found in the Ontario Ministry of Health’s COVID-19 Daily Epidemiologic Summary. The number of cases for any city or region may differ slightly from what is reported by the province, because local units report figures at different times.
