28 new COVID-19 cases reported in Waterloo Region; active infections, cases rise
Waterloo Region reported 28 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday as active infections and outbreaks rise.
Of the 28 new cases, 27 are linked to the past day and one is from a previous reporting period.
Seven of the latest infections were reported among children nine or younger.
Waterloo Region has now logged 19,162 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began, including 18,683 resolved infections and 291 deaths.
Active cases rose by seven in the past 24 hours, now up to 183. Two more COVID-19 outbreaks were declared, bringing the total number of active outbreaks to four.
There are currently six people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Waterloo Region and eight people receiving treatment in area intensive care units.
The Region of Waterloo only counts active, infectious patients in hospitalization numbers, but counts both active and resolved cases in ICU figures. This means ICU numbers can sometimes be higher than hospitalizations.
Eleven more infections were confirmed as variant of concern cases in Thursday's update, bringing the total number of variant cases in the region to 5,158.
Waterloo Region's variant breakdown is as follows:
- 3,134 are the Alpha variant, first identified in the United Kingdom and originally known as B.1.1.7
- 21 are the Beta variant, originally detected in South Africa and previously referred to as B.1.315
- 98 are the Gamma variant, initially discovered in Brazil and labelled as P.1
- 1,649 are the Delta variant, first found in India and previously called B.1.617
- 256 cases have had a mutation detected, but have not yet had a variant strain confirmed
Health partners have now administered 834,779 COVID-19 vaccine doses, with 1,672 jabs put into arms on Wednesday.
Among the eligible population, 80.47 per cent are fully vaccinated and 86.96 per cent have received at least one dose.
Across Waterloo Region's entire population, 69.30 per cent are fully vaccinated and 74.89 per cent have received at least one dose.
Province-wide, 798 new COVID-19 cases were reported on Thursday.
Of those, 620 cases involve individuals who are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status and 178 are in fully vaccinated individuals, according to provincial health officials.
Ontario has now confirmed 9,579 COVID-19-related deaths and 572,130 cases since the pandemic began.
With files from CTV Toronto.
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