Public Health Ontario is reporting a record 11,352 new COVID cases today for Jan. 3, however, that total is likely an underestimate according to the province.
Increasing COVID case counts driven by omicron have made testing less available, and it has led to the daily totals being an underestimation of actual infections in Ontario. New testing instructions from the province are now limiting testing to certain high-risk groups, leaving symptomatic individuals to isolate but not get a test to confirm whether they have COVID.
York Region Public Health does not update its public dashboard on weekends, and will report yesterday's data after 5 p.m. today.
The Jan. 4 updates provided by the province's public health agency and the Ministry of Health also reported the following data:
- 7,519 recoveries and 10 deaths since yesterday's report.
- There are 130,307 active, lab-confirmed cases.
- Vaccination status for new cases and hospitalizations were not updated at publication time.
- 1,232 people are in hospital testing positive for COVID-19. It's not clear how many people were hospitalized for COVID-19. The province has said changes will be made in how these numbers are reported in the coming days.
- The seven-day average by vaccination status (last reported Dec. 31) indicated 59.8 cases per 100,000 unvaccinated people, 63.8 cases per 100,000 partially vaccinated people, and 79.8 cases per 100,000 fully vaccinated people.
- The new cases reported today include 1,647 unvaccinated people, 445 partially vaccinated people, and 9,040 fully vaccinated people, 219 cases were reported with vaccination status unknown. Among the hospitalized COVID patients are 303 unvaccinated cases, 64 partially vaccinated cases, and 667 fully vaccinated cases.
- The seven-day average by vaccination status indicated 63.3 cases per 100,000 unvaccinated people, 59 cases per 100,000 partially vaccinated people, and 79.5 cases per 100,000 fully vaccinated people. Included in the ICU cases are 86 unvaccinated cases, 54 fully vaccinated cases, and nine partially vaccinated cases.
- 248 people are in ICU due to COVID-19. Of those, 235 people are testing positive and 13 are testing negative. There are 125 people in an intensive care unit (ICU) on a ventilator because of COVID. Hospitalization data is incomplete as more than 10 per cent of hospitals did not report to the bed census over the long weekend. So these numbers are also likely an underestimation.
- 11.4 million people in Ontario (77 per cent of the population) are fully vaccinated, and five per cent of the province has one dose of COVID vaccine.
- The province reported 54,346 tests were processed yesterday, resulting in a 30.9 per cent positivity rate.
- Among the new cases reported today, 489 were from Simcoe-Muskoka, 1,059 were from York Region, 2,480 were from Toronto, 136 were from Grey-Bruce, and 1,486 were from Peel.
- Today's new cases include 308 children under five, 665 kids ages five to 11 years old, 1,030 youth between 12 and 19 years old, 4,431 people between 20 and 39 years old, 3,298 people between 40 and 59 years old, 1,300 people between 60 and 79 years old, and 418 people over 80 years old.
Public Health Ontario has confirmed 805,098 cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, and reported 664,562 recoveries and 10,229 deaths.
The cumulative average incidence rate in the province is 5,541.3 cases per 100,000 people in Ontario.
Ontario's average seven-day incidence rate from Dec. 25 to Dec. 31 was 617.5 cases per 100,000 people, which increased 76.5 per cent over the seven-day period starting on Dec. 19.
For more on the province's breakdown of vaccination status, click here.
