Ontario reports 1,958 new COVID-19 cases as vaccine deployment changes

Other public health sectors that have seen double-digit increases are:

• Windsor-Essex: 85
• Niagara Region: 82
• Durham region: 62
• Hamilton: 55
• Halton Region: 54
• Ottawa: 51
• Middlesex-London: 46
• Simcoma Scoca: 41
• Waterloo Region: 39
• Wellington-Duffalin-Guelph: 35
• Huron-Perth: 29
• Southwest: 28
• Chatham-Kent: 22
• Lambton: 19
• Eastern Ontario: 11
• Halliburton, Kawasa, Pineridge: 11

(Note: All numbers used in this story are the Ministry of Health’s COVID-19 dashboard or its. Daily epidemiological summary.. The number of cases per region may differ from that reported by the local public health department, as regional units report numbers at different times. )

This was the lowest number of new infections recorded per day in almost a week. The daily 7-day average continued to decline steadily to 2,371, the lowest since December 30, 2020. It has been on a downward trend since its peak of 3,555 on January 11.

However, in particular, the Ontario Labs network processed only 35,968 virus test samples, despite having a capacity of over 70,000 per day. In summary, they reported a 5.5 percent test positive rate.

In today’s report, an additional 2,448 cases were marked as resolved. Currently, there are 23,620 confirmed active infectious diseases throughout the state.

The public health sector recorded an additional 43 deaths for COVID-19 people, pushing Ontario’s official death toll to 5,846.

Meanwhile, at a media briefing this morning, members of the Ontario Vaccine Distribution Task Force said the state would postpone the initial doses of healthcare workers and critical caregivers amid a shortage of Pfizer products.

Instead, available vaccine doses are directed only to residents of nursing homes and retirement homes at risk, and to indigenous seniors living in elderly care facilities. The goal is to give everyone in any of these groups the first dose of the vaccine by February 5, 10 days earlier than originally planned.

Healthcare workers and key caregivers in the long-term care sector were to be vaccinated with residents in the early stages of state deployment. However, due to delayed shipments of the Pfizer vaccine, officials said the next few weeks will only focus on those at highest risk of serious illness or death.

This shift means that other front-line healthcare professionals in the environment, such as those who provide patient care directly in the hospital, will have to wait longer than originally planned for vaccination.

State officials also said there were uncertainties surrounding the expected shipment of Pfizer vaccine during the week of February 8 and February 15. The federal government has not yet specified the number of doses Ontario is expected to receive during that period and will provide a fine-grained time frame for when those shots will be administered.

In addition, all 34 Ontario public health units will have vaccines available to priority groups by the end of this week. As of this morning, there were 14 health units that had not previously been administered for administration.

The state said it had vaccinated 5,537 doses on Sunday. A total of 286,110 shots were administered, and 71,256 received a second dose.

100,000 students return to school

Schools of seven public health units in southern Ontario have been reopened today for face-to-face lessons.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce said it meant that 100,000 students would return to the classroom for the first time before winter vacation.

The state is taking more safety measures in areas where schools are reopening, such as requiring 1st to 3rd grade students to wear masks indoors or being unable to keep physical distance outdoors. We carry out.

We have also introduced “targeted asymptomatic tests” in these areas.

More than a month has passed since students from southern Ontario came to the classroom, but classes resumed in northern Ontario on January 11.

The state government said the chief health officer is closely monitoring the status of COVID-19 in the public health sector, which determines when schools remain closed and safe to reopen.

However, the state states that it will not occur until at least February 10 in the five hotspot areas of Windsor-Essex, Peel, York, Toronto, and Hamilton.

The public health units that have reopened today are:

• Gray blues
• Halliburton, Kawasa, Pineridge
• Hastings and Prince Edward County
• Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox & Addington
• Leeds, Glenville, Lanark
• Peterborough
• Renfrew County