The number of COVID-positive hospital patients in Ontario has jumped back up to rates reported more than three weeks ago.
Today's update from the province indicates 790 COVID-positive patients in hospital, which is around the same amount reported at the end of Feburary and beginning of March. Since then hospitalization numbers had been slowly decreasing, dipping as low as 551 last week.
Seven more COVID deaths have been confirmed in the latest provincial COVID update, bringing the total number of deaths since March 1 to 214.
Over the course of the pandemic, the province has reported 12,414 deaths that were either caused by COVID, COVID was a contributing factor to the death, or the cause of death was unknown or missing.
There were 1,683 more recoveries and 1,610 new cases confirmed through lab testing in today's report. New case counts are underestimated due to limited testing.
As of today, Public Health Ontario has confirmed 1,156,656 cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, and reported 1,124,888 cases recovered or resolved.
The March 29 updates provided by the province's public health agency and the ministry of health also reported the following data:
Hospitalizations
- 790 COVID-positive patients in hospitals, up from 655 reported yesterday. Of those, 47 per cent were admitted because of COVID-19 and 53 per cent were admitted for unrelated reasons, but tested positive for COVID-19.
- Among the hospitalized patients (not in the ICU) are 153 unvaccinated people, 32 partially vaccinated people, and 470 fully vaccinated people.
- 165 people are in ICU because of COVID-related critical illness, up from 158 reported yesterday. Of those, 34 no longer test positive for COVID-19.
- There are 84 patients on ventilators because of COVID-related critical illness.
- Included in the ICU hospitalizations are 23 unvaccinated people, two partially vaccinated people, and 61 fully vaccinated people.
Vaccination
- About 86 per cent of the population over four years old in Ontario is fully vaccinated (about 12.1 million people)
- More than 7.1 million people in Ontario have had three doses of a COVID vaccine.
- 10 per cent of the eligible population (aged 5 and up) is unvaccinated
Testing
- Ontario labs processed 12,302 tests for the latest report, resulting in a 14.4 per cent positivity.
Simcoe-Muskoka
In the last update published March 28, the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit reported two deaths, 303 new COVID cases, and zero new hospitalizations.
There are 14 people from the region currently hospitalized because of COVID-19, including three patients in ICUs.
Since the start of the pandemic, the local health unit has confirmed 38,013 cases of COVID-19 with 36,425 of those cases recovered and 438 cases ending in death.
The next update for Simcoe-Muskoka will be posted by the health unit on Wednesday (March 30).
