Chris Herhalt, CP24 Web Content Writer

@_Herhalt

Published Sunday, March 6, 2022 10:20AM EST
Last Updated Sunday, March 6, 2022 10:20AM EST

Hundreds of people gather at a mass vaccination site at York University in Toronto on Sunday, Jan. 23, 2022. (Twitter/John Tory)

Ontario reported 21 net new COVID-19 deaths on Sunday, as the number of patients in hospital fell again to levels not seen in more than two months.

The Ministry of Health said 17 of the deaths reported Sunday occurred in the past 30 days and four others occurred prior to that period.

There have been 140 deaths confirmed in the past week and 800 in the past 30 days.

Twelve thousand five-hundred and seventy deaths have been confirmed in Ontario since March 2020.

Four of Sunday’s new deaths involved residents of the long-term care system.

The Ministry of Health said there were 684 patients with COVID-19 in hospitals on Sunday, although a number of hospitals do not report occupancy on weekends.

Of those, 247 were in intensive care, down six from Saturday, and 134 were breathing with the help of a ventilator, down 13 from Saturday.

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Provincial labs processed 12,119 test specimens in the previous period, generating a positivity rate of 10.2 per cent.

Of the 1,787 cases confirmed through PCR testing in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health says 205 involved unvaccinated people, 47 involved partially vaccinated people, 1,416 involved people with at least two doses of vaccine and 119 involved people with unknown vaccination status.

The province limited access to free PCR COVID-19 testing to a select few groups at the end of 2021.

The Ministry of Health says 17,554 COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered on Saturday.

Of those, 1,348 were first doses, 5,904 were second doses and 9,950 were third doses.

Across all age groups, 85.2 per cent of Ontario residents have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, 81.5 per cent have received two doses and 47.7 per cent have received three 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.