Ontario reports 3 new COVID-19 deaths; positivity at 3-month low

Ontario reported three new COVID-19 deaths on Sunday, with the lowest test positivity observed since February.

The Ministry of Health says all three deaths occurred in the last 30 days.

There have been 65 deaths reported in the past seven days, 399 in the past 30 days and 13,288 since the pandemic began.

Provincial labs processed 6,998 test specimens in the past 24 hours, generating a positivity rate of 7.1 per cent.

It’s the lowest positivity rate recorded since Feb. 22.

Average positivity over the past week was 7.8 per cent, down from 8.9 per cent in the week prior.

The Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table says viral prevalence in wastewater continues to decline in all regions of the province.

Total hospital occupancy was not available on Sunday, but there were 111 patients testing positive for COVID-19 in hospital ICUs across the province, up four from Saturday.

The ICU occupancy due to COVID-19 has fallen by 36 patients in the past seven days.

Of the 710 cases of COVID-19 confirmed through access to PCR testing on Sunday, 60 were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, 127 had two doses of vaccine, 443 had three or more doses of vaccine and the vaccination status of 80 others was not known.

The Ministry of Health says 14,204 COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered on Saturday.

Of those, 892 were first doses, 1,351 were second doses, 2,001 were third doses and 9,960 were fourth doses.

The numbers used in this story are found in the Ontario Ministry of Health’s COVID-19 Daily Epidemiologic Summary. The number of cases for any city or region may differ slightly from what is reported by the province, because local units report figures at different times.