One new COVID-19-related death, 21 cases reported in Waterloo Region
Health officials in Waterloo Region logged one COVID-19-related death and 21 new cases on Wednesday.
The latest death is the region's 291st.
Of the 21 new cases reported Wednesday, 19 are linked to the past day and two are from previous reporting periods.
Six of the latest infections were among people aged 10 to 19 and four are in youth nine or younger.
Waterloo Region has now confirmed 19,134 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began, including 18,662 resolved infections and 176 active cases.
Another 44 infections were confirmed as variant of concern cases on Wednesday, nearly all of which were identified as the Delta variant.
There have now been 5,147 lab-confirmed variant cases in Waterloo Region.
The 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
- 1,637 are the Delta variant, first found in India and previously called B.1.617
- 257 cases have had a mutation detected, but have not yet had a variant strain confirmed
Hospitalizations remain unchanged in the past 24 hours, still sitting at seven. The number of people receiving treatment in area intensive care units dipped by one, down to eight.
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.
One COVID-19 outbreak was declared resolved in Wednesday's report. There are now only two active outbreaks across the region.
Meanwhile, health partners administered 1,202 COVID-19 vaccine doses on Tuesday. Since the vaccine rollout launched, 833,076 vaccine doses have been administered in the region.
More than 80.2 per cent of the eligible population is now fully vaccinated and 86.83 per cent of residents 12 and older have received at least one dose.
Among Waterloo Region's entire population, 69.14 per cent are fully vaccinated and 74.77 per cent have received at least one dose.
On Wednesday, provincial health officials reported 554 new infections across Ontario.
Of the latest cases, the Ministry of Health said 418 were among people who were not fully vaccinated or whose vaccination status was unknown.
Ontario has now logged 571,332 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began.
With files from CTV Toronto.
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