Ontario reports 653 new COVID cases Sunday

Public Health Ontario has reported 653 new COVID-19 cases in its latest report (Sept. 26).

Today's update also includes 639 new recoveries and three deaths in the last month. Another three deaths that occurred more than one month ago were also added, for a total of six deaths in this update.

The Sept. 26 update provided by the province's public health agency also reported the following data:

• Of the new cases reported today, 398 were unvaccinated people, 39 were partially vaccinated, 154 were fully vaccinated, and 62 are listed as vaccination status unknown (missing health card information).
• 5,591  active cases, up from 5,583 yesterday.
• 198 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in Ontario, down from 323 yesterday. *note: not all hospitals submit data on the weekend.*
• There are 177 patients in intensive care units because of COVID-19 (26 of those people no longer test positive for COVID-19) and 127 patients on ventilators (17 of those patients no longer test positive for COVID-19).
• The province reported 31,063 tests were processed yesterday.
• Another 11,512 tests are still under investigation and/or being processed. To date, 17.95 million tests have been completed.

Variants of concern (Ontario-wide)

• 146,461 lab-confirmed cases of the UK variant strain of COVID-19 (B.1.1.7/Alpha variant). 
• 1,502 cases of B.1.351 (also known as the South African variant/Beta variant).
• 5,229 cases of P.1, which is the variant strain that originated in Brazil (Gamma variant). 
• 18,620 cases of B.1.617.2 (also known as the Delta variant).
• Another 50,614 cases have screened positive with a mutation detected, but the lineage for the variant strain not yet detected.
• According to Public Health Ontario, there are delays between specimen collection and the testing required to confirm a variant of concern. As such, the reports can change and can differ from past case counts publicly reported.

Vaccines

• There were 37,645 doses of vaccines against COVID-19 administered yesterday, down from 47,871 on Sept. 24.
• 21,651,850 doses of vaccine have been administered.
• In total, 10,461,784 people have been fully vaccinated.

Public Health Ontario has confirmed 583,928 cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, and reported 568,633 recoveries and 9,704 deaths, 4,010 of those in long-term care homes.