Ontario COVID hospitalizations fall for fifth consecutive day

Ontario reports 583 people in ICU due to COVID-19 and 2,983 in the hospital who are generally testing positive for COVID-19, according to its latest report released Monday morning.

This is the fifth consecutive day’s hospitalization numbers due to COVID showing a downward trend. It is important to note that not all hospitals report COVID numbers at the weekend.

About 22.6 percent of the province’s 2,343 adult ICU beds remain available for new patients.

Given new provincial testing regulations that went into effect on December 31, 2021, case counts – reported on Monday at 3,043, 23 percent lower than the previous day – are also not considered an accurate assessment of how widespread COVID-19 is currently is not. 32 new deaths have been reported in the latest numbers.

Here’s the latest update on some other data points.

HOSPITALIZATIONS BY ENTSTATUS

A Star analysis of data shows that unvaccinated people are admitted to the ICU at a rate four times higher and in hospital generally twice as high as people who are fully vaccinated.

Due to Ontario’s strong uptake of vaccines, fully vaccinated people make up a large percentage of the overall population. This means that they will logically make up a higher percentage of people in the hospital when looking at raw numbers.

Given the prevalence of the Omicron variant in Ontario, breakthrough infections are common among fully vaccinated people, but early data from several studies around the world suggest that symptoms are milder and serious complications more rare than in previous stages of the pandemic.

The province warns that due to the way data is being collected, its hospitalization according to vaccination status numbers may not match broader hospital data as reported on any given day.

Due to incomplete weekend and holiday reporting, vaccination status data for hospital and ICU admissions are not updated on Sundays, Mondays and the day after holidays.

VACCINES

The province says 11,728,578 people completed their vaccinations, meaning they had two doses.

This works out to about 83.7 percent of the qualifying population aged five and older, and the equivalent of 79.8 percent of the total population, including those who are not yet eligible for the vaccine.

The province says 6,380,176 people received three doses of a Health Canada-approved vaccine.

According to the Star’s vaccine tracker, 12,463,473 people in Attario received at least one shot. This works out to about 88.9 percent of the qualifying population of five years and older and the equivalent of 84.8 percent of the total population, including those who are not yet eligible for the vaccine.

Ontario administered 91,134 vaccine doses since its last daily update, with 30 649 731 vaccines given in total from 20:00 the previous day.

COVID IN SCHOOL

The province also includes data on COVID-19 in schools as part of its daily reporting when schools are in session.

As of Friday, eight schools have been closed with a reported case of COVID out of 4,844 schools in the province.

Note that data reported by the province is often behind what is reported by individual schools and can cause inconsistencies.

COVID IN LONG-TERM CARE

Meanwhile, the province reports that there are no new deaths in long-term care, so the number of residents who died remains the same at 4,077, according to their latest report.

Ontario reports a total of 353 long-term care homes that have broken out, or 56.4 percent of LTC homes in the province.

These data are themselves reported to the Ministry of Long-Term Care by the long-term care homes. Daily case and death rates may not immediately match those posted by local public health units due to delays in reporting time.