Ontario reports more than 500 new COVID-19 cases for 1st time in almost 4 weeks

Of the 563 new cases recorded, 259 were unvaccinated people, 15 were partially vaccinated, 249 were fully vaccinated and for 40 people the vaccination status was unknown.

Ontario is reporting 563 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, the first time the count surpassed 500 in almost four weeks. The provincial case total now stands at 602,087.

For comparison, last Friday saw 419 new cases and the previous Friday saw 492. All three Friday’s saw comparable testing volumes in the 30,000 range. The last time the case count hit above 500 was on Oct. 10 when 535 new cases were recorded.

Of the 563 new cases recorded, the data showed 259 were unvaccinated people, 15 were partially vaccinated people, 249 were fully vaccinated people and for 40 people the vaccination status was unknown.

According to Friday’s report, 52 cases were recorded in York Region, 49 in Simcoe Muskoka, 44 each in Toronto, Peel Region, and Ottawa, 37 in Windsor-Essex, 29 in Southwestern and 28 in North Bay. All other local public health units reported fewer than 25 new cases in the provincial report.

The death toll in the province has risen to 9,896 as five new deaths were recorded.

As of 8 p.m. on Thursday, 15,901 vaccines (5,442 for a first shot and 10,459 for a second shot) were administered in the last day.

There are more than 11 million people fully immunized with two doses, which is 84.9 per cent of the eligible (12 and older) population. First dose coverage stands at 88.4 per cent.

Meanwhile, 588,796 Ontario residents were reported to have recovered from COVID-19, which is about 98 per cent of known cases. Resolved cases increased by 352 from the previous day.