More than 20% of Ontario adults fully vaccinated, province reports more than 300 new cases - CityNews Toronto

Ontario is reporting 345 new COVID-19 cases and a single new death on Friday.

The province is reporting a test positivity rate of 1.4 per cent, down from 2 per cent one week ago.

There were 26,643 tests completed in the last 24-hour period.

Locally, there are 85 new cases in Waterloo, 50 in Toronto, 50 in Peel, 29 in Hamilton and 22 in York Region.

There were another 624 resolved cases, dropping the active case count once again. Resolved cases have outnumbered new infections each day since mid-April.

The province reported 370 cases and 7 deaths on Thursday.

The rolling seven-day average has dropped to 410, reaching the lowest point since late September.

There are now 378 people hospitalized in the province with 352 in the ICU. Hospitalizations are down more than 100 since one week ago and ICU numbers have dropped nearly 100 in the last week.

There were 210,638 vaccine doses administered in the last 24-hour period. It is the third straight day the province has set a daily vaccination record.

As of 8:00 p.m. Thursday, 12,153,663 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered and 74.3 per cent of Ontarians over the age of 12 have received at least one dose.

More than 20 per cent of Ontario adults have now been fully vaccinated, meeting the required threshold for Step 2 of the economic reopening plan.

Before Step 2 of the plan could begin on July 2, the province said that 70 per cent of Ontario adults need to have received at least one dose, and 20 per cent need to have received both doses. The province has already surpassed the first vaccination threshold.

Ontario has further accelerated second shot appointments for anyone aged 18-and-up that received a first dose of an mRNA vaccine (Pfizer or Moderna) on or before May 30 living in 10 Delta variant hotspot regions.

Those that qualify will be eligible to book an appointment for a second dose starting Wednesday, June 23.

The province is also expanding second dose eligibility on Monday to all Ontarians, Delta hotspot or not, who received their first dose of an mRNA vaccine on or before May 9.

Everyone else in Ontario outside of Delta hot spots who got a first shot before May 31 – except for youth aged between 12 and 17 years old – is eligible to book their second dose starting June 28.

The province sped up second dose appointments for Delta variant hotspots on Monday, allowing adults that received the first shot of an mRNA vaccine on or before May 9 to book for a second dose.

Individuals who received their first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine are also eligible to receive a second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine at an interval of eight to 12 weeks, with informed consent. This can include a second dose of AstraZeneca or an mRNA vaccine.

There has been no word of any changes to the province’s rollout after the latest recommendation from the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) on second doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

NACI said Thursday that people who got the AstraZeneca vaccine as their first dose should get Pfizer or Moderna for their second shot.

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More than 20% of Ontario adults fully vaccinated, province reports more than 300 new cases - CityNews Toronto
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