Doctor Says Ontario Is in 6th Wave of Pandemic With Almost 800 COVID-19 Patients in Hospital

Ontario reported on Tuesday COVID-19 hospitalizations have increased week-over-week more than a 23 percent. One epidemiologist says Ontario is experiencing the sixth wave of the pandemic.

While a week ago there was 639 patients currently in Ontario hospitals with the COVID-19 virus, there are currently 790 according to the Ministry of Health.

The ministry says 47 percent of patients were hospitalized with COVID-19 and 53 percent tested positive for the virus but were admitted for other reasons.

Hospitalizations in Ontario are at its highest number since March 5 with 795 admitted patients.

Not only are hospitalizations back on the rise, ICU occupancy has recently seen an increase as well. Of those currently admitted, 165 patients are in intensive care. Seventy-two percent of ICU patients were hospitalized with COVID-19 and 28 percent were admitted for other reasons.

Seven of the nine deaths reported occurred in the past month, the Ministry says, and two more occurred more than a month ago. Two of the deaths were residents of long-term care.

Since March 2020, the province says there have been 12,414 COVID-19 related deaths.

In the past day, Ontario labs processed a positivity rate of 14.4 percent from more than 12,300 tests. The Ministry reports the positivity rate is up 12.2 percent from a week ago. 

1,610 more COVID infections reported today were lab-confirmed, however due to province-wide reduced PCR testing that is an underestimate.

Wastewater surveillance data indicates an increase in transmission in Ontario doubling every ten days, according to the Ontario Science Advisory Table.

Ontario is now in a sixth wave of the pandemic as cases continue to rise, according to infectious diseases specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch.

“It’s clear that there are more cases now than there were a week ago and two weeks ago. We could call this a wave, we just don’t know the size of the wave but it’s here,” he told CP24.

“I think it’s fair to say that we’ll see a rise (in cases), it’s just not quite clear how big it’s going to be.”

Among the recent cases, 842 are individuals who received three doses, 431 have two doses, 232 are not fully vaccinated, and 105 have an unknown vaccination status.

Eighty-nine percent of eligible Ontarians aged five and older have at least one dose of the vaccine, while 89 percent have two doses and 51 percent have three doses.