Niagara's public health agency has identified 86 variant cases in the region, of which 4 cases have been confirmed to be the U.K mutation of the coronavirus.
The number has increased steadily in the past week, coming in at 86 in Wednesday's update.
In total, 23 new cases were confirmed on Wednesday, bringing the region's confirmed active cases to 224.
The death toll remained unchanged at 369, according to the region's reporting tool.
In total, 8,814 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in the past year in Niagara.
Ontario update
Public Health Ontario has reported 1,316 new cases of COVID-19 today (March 10).
Today's report includes 1,212 recoveries and 17 new deaths, none were long-term care residents. One death previously reported has been removed from the list, resulting in a net increase of 16 deaths for today's report.
The deaths reported today include one person between 40 and 59 years old, nine people between 60 and 79 years old, and seven people aged 80 or older.
The province has reported 53 new hospitalizations since yesterday, and 12 new admissions of COVID-19 patients to intensive care units.
The March 10 update provided by the province's public health agency also reported the following data:
- 11,311 active cases, which is up from 11,223 yesterday
- 678 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in Ontario, down from 689 reported yesterday.
- There are 281 COVID patients in intensive care units (down from 290) and 178 COVID patients on ventilators (down from 184 yesterday)
- The province reported 54,149 tests were processed yesterday resulting in a 2.5 per cent positivity rate.
- Another 38,518 tests are still under investigation and/or being processed. To date, 11.5 million tests have been completed.
- Of the 1,316 new cases reported today, 428 are from Toronto, 244 cases are from Peel, 149 are from York Region, and 31 are from Simcoe-Muskoka
- There are 74 active outbreaks at long-term care homes, 55 at retirement homes, and 22 at hospitals.
- The new cases reported today include 267 individuals aged 19 and under, 478 people between 20 and 39 years old, 363 people between 40 and 59 years old, 179 people between 60 and 79 years old, and 31 people aged 80 and over.
Variants of concern (Ontario-wide)
- 921 lab-confirmed cases of the UK variant strain of COVID-19 (B.1.1.7).
- 39 cases of B.1.351 (also known as the South African variant).
- 17 cases of P.1, which is the variant strain that originated in Brazil.
- 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 35,264 doses of vaccines against COVID-19 administered on March 9, which is up from 31,047 administered on Mar. 8.
- As of 8 p.m. on March 8, the province reported 978,797 doses of vaccine against COVID-19 have been administered.
- In total, 279,204 people have been fully vaccinated.
Public Health Ontario has confirmed 312,428 cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, and reported 294,018 recoveries and 7,099 deaths, of which 3,876 were individuals living in long-term care homes.
The cumulative average incidence rate in the province is 2,101.9 cases per 100,000 people in Ontario.
The weekly incidence rate in Ontario is 53.1 cases per 100,000 people, which is an increase of 3.3 per cent from last week (Feb. 22-28).
