48 new COVID-19 cases reported in Waterloo Region as active cases rise

Health officials in Waterloo Region reported another 48 cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday as active cases continue to rise.

Active cases rose by 19 on Wednesday, now sitting at 312.

The latest update brings the total number of cases in Waterloo Region to 21,225, with 20,598 recoveries and 309 deaths.

There are 14 people receiving treatment for COVID-19 in area hospitals, including three in the ICU.

There are 16 active outbreaks in the region. The COVID-19 dashboard shows an outbreak in the stroke unit at Grand River Hospital. Hospital officials said two patients have tested positive in that outbreak. There was also a new outbreak listed at a construction workplace, with four cases.

The region's breakdown of 7,291 variant of concern cases is as follows:

• 3,127 are the Alpha variant
• 21 are the Beta variant
• 98 are the Gamma variant
• 3,783 are the Delta variant
• 262 cases have had a mutation detected, but have not yet had a variant strain confirmed

A total of 945,175 doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in Waterloo Region to date. Of the population over the age of five, 84.09 per cent are partially vaccinated and 79.50 per cent are fully vaccinated. As for the entire population, 79.63 per cent have one dose, while 75.31 per cent have both doses.

Ontario reported 1,009 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday.

Of those new cases, 421 cases were in unvaccinated people, 22 were in partially vaccinated people and 64 people had an unknown vaccination status. The remaining 502 infections were in fully vaccinated people.

The seven-day average for new cases in Ontario is now at 1,007, up from 821 last Wednesday.

To date, Ontario has reported 626,321 COVID-19 cases, including 607,926 recoveries and 10,044 deaths.

With files from CTV Toronto