Ontario reports 2,479 in the hospital overall tested positive for COVID-19 and 338 people in the ICU according to its latest report released Friday morning.
The numbers represent a six percent increase in the COVID-19 ICU count and an eight percent increase in hospitalizations overall; 85.5% of the 2,343 adult ICU beds in the province are still available for new patients.
Provincial figures for general hospitalizations should be used with caution as a factor in determining the severity of COVID-19 cases because they include people who have tested positive but are not hospitalized as a direct result of the virus. In some cases, individual hospitals have said that nearly 50 percent of people who tested positive were not admitted due to COVID.
Given new provincial regulations on testing that went into effect on December 31, 2021, the case counts, reported at 11,899 on Friday, down 11 percent from the day before, are also not considered an accurate assessment of how widespread. is COVID-19 right now. 42 new deaths were reported in the latest issues, most due to a data update.
Here’s the latest update on some other data points.
HOSPITALIZATIONS BY VACCINATION STATUS
TO Star data analysis shows that unvaccinated people have been admitted to the ICU at a rate five times higher and to the hospital overall at two times higher than people who have been fully vaccinated.
Due to the strong acceptance of vaccines in Ontario, fully vaccinated people make up a large percentage of the general population. That means they would logically represent a higher percentage of people in the hospital when looking at the raw numbers.
Given the prevalence of the Omicron variant in Ontario, breakthrough infections among fully vaccinated people are common, but early data from multiple studies around the world suggest that symptoms are milder and serious complications are rarer than in earlier stages of the pandemic.
The province cautions that due to the way the data is collected, hospitalization numbers by vaccination status may not match the broader hospital data reported on any given day.
Due to incomplete reports for weekends and holidays, vaccination status data for hospital and ICU admissions is not updated on Sunday, Monday, and the day after holidays.
VACCINES
The province says 11,454,222 people have completed their vaccinations, meaning they have received two doses.
That works out to about 81.7 percent of the eligible population ages five and older, and the equivalent of 78 percent of the total population, including those who are not yet eligible for the vaccine.
The province says 4,406,948 people have received three doses of a Health Canada approved vaccine.
According to Star’s vaccine tracker, 12,260,375 people in Ontario have received at least one vaccine. That works out to about 87.5 percent of the eligible population ages five and older and the equivalent of 83 percent of the total population, including those who are not yet eligible for the vaccine.
Ontario has administered 194,093 vaccine doses since your last daily update, with 28,140,051 vaccines administered in total until 8:00 p.m. on Thursday.
COVID IN LONG-TERM CARE
Meanwhile, seven more residents in long-term care have died for a total of 4,047 since the pandemic began. in the latest report released by the province.
Ontario reports 22 more long-term care homes outbreak, for a total of 208 or 33.2 percent of LTC homes in the province.
These data are self-reported by long-term care homes to the Ministry of Long-Term Care. Daily case and death figures may not immediately match the figures published by local public health units due to delays in reporting time.
Reference-www.thestar.com