Ontario is now averaging over two-thousand new cases of COVID-19 per day.
That’s almost double what it was at the beginning of the month.
The positivity rate also inched up to 4.6 per cent from 3.9 per cent last week.
Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams says the good news, cases in long-term care homes are decreasing.
“We’ve also seen a shift in hospitalizations. We see that number go back up again. Some of our data shows we’re getting close to where we were in the peak of our second wave,” notes Dr. Williams.
The variant strains of the virus are the main concern.
Dr. Williams says the chances of being hospitalized with one of three variant strains are now greater than with the original strain.
“This is not a benign issue with these variants for people under 50 who felt that maybe in the initial COVID this was not a big deal. This for you now is a big deal,” warns Dr. Williams.
There have been almost 1,900 variants of concern identified around the province. Most are connected to the B.1.1.7, which originated in the United Kingdom.
