Ontario is recording 745 new COVID-19 cases and 14 more deaths as health officials say a data migration has resulted in an underestimation of Tuesday’s count.
Over the past several days, Toronto Public Health (TPH) has been migrating all of its data to the provincial data system. A process that health officials say is now complete.
“Most notably, TPH’s case count is negative following the identification of duplicate cases as well as data corrections to some fields, resulting in an underestimation of today’s cases,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, Alexandra Hilkene, said on Tuesday.
“In addition, case counts for other public health units may have been affected by system outages related to the migration.”
Hilkene added that fluctuations in case numbers over the next few days are expected as a result.
The new infections of the novel coronavirus logged Tuesday mark a significant decrease from the 1,969 cases seen on Monday.
Before that, the province recorded 1,848 infections of the disease on Sunday and 2,063 on Saturday.
The province’s seven-day average for number of cases recorded is now 1,746, down from 2,346 one week ago.
There were 28,552 COVID-19 tests completed in Ontario in the last-recorded 24-hour period, which falls well below the provincial testing capacity of more than 70,000 daily swabs.
The test positivity rate now stands at about 4.6 per cent, according to the Ministry of Health.
Tuesday’s epidemiological summary records -119 cases in Toronto, 334 in Peel Region 124 in York Region, 65 in Niagara Region, and 52 in Hamilton. All other health units recorded fewer than 50 cases.
Tuesday’s count brings the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Ontario to 270,925, including deaths and recoveries.
With the 14 new deaths confirmed by health officials on Tuesday, the province’s death toll is now 6,238. Of the new deaths, four were residents of long-term care homes.
According to the province, there are at least 1,192 patients infected with the novel coronavirus in Ontario hospitals as of Tuesday. Of those patients, 341 are in the intensive care unit (ICU) and 253 of those 341 patients are breathing with the assistance of a ventilator.
At this time last week, there were 1,466 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, 383 of which were in the ICU and 298 were on a ventilator.
On Tuesday, health officials deemed 2,297 more cases of the disease to be resolved, bringing Ontario’s number of recovered patients up to 247,236.
There are currently 17,451 active cases of COVID-19 in Ontario, down from 23,036 one week ago.
Officials also confirmed there have been a total of 109 cases of the U.K. variant, also known as B.1.1.7, found in Ontario as of Tuesday.
The first case of the South African variant, also known as B.1.351, was found in Ontario this week. Health officials said the Mississauga resident had no history of travel.
Thus far, 344,615 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Ontario, including 2,715 doses administered in the previous day. The vaccine requires two doses. In Ontario, 72,057 total vaccinations have been completed as of Sunday.
