One new COVID-19-related death in Waterloo Region on Friday, 16 more cases
Health officials in Waterloo Region logged one COVID-19-related death and 16 more infections in Friday's report.
The latest death, the region's 282nd, was a woman in her 70s.
Of the 16 new cases, 14 are linked to the past 24 hours, while two are from previous reporting periods.
Friday's update brings Waterloo Region's total caseload to 18,257, including 17,823 resolved infections and 143 active cases.
Meanwhile, hospitalizations in the region dropped by eight in the past day. There are now 13 people hospitalized with COVID-19 across the region, with 13 people receiving treatment in area intensive care units.
One active outbreak was declared resolved in Friday's update, with 11 outbreaks still active.
Health officials have processed 537,724 COVID-19 tests since the pandemic began. As of Friday, the region's positivity rate sits at 2.6 per cent, while the reproductive rate of the virus is 0.8.
The seven-day rolling average cases per 100,000 is 3.2, down from 3.7 on Tuesday.
Health partners across the region put another 5,626 COVID-19 vaccine doses in arms on Thursday, bringing the total number of doses administered to 726,493.
More than 81.1 per cent of the eligible population has receive at least one dose, while 62.82 per cent of residents 12 and older are fully vaccinated.
Another three COVID-19 infections were confirmed as variant of concern cases in Friday's update, bringing the total number of variant cases to 4,579.
Waterloo Region's variant breakdown is as follows:
- 3,122 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
- 96 are the Gamma variant, initially discovered in Brazil and labelled as P.1
- 1,083 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
Province-wide, 192 new COVID-19 cases and one death were confirmed in Friday's update.
Ontario’s rolling seven-day average now stands at 160, up from 151 at this point last week.
There have now been 538,271 lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases in Ontario.
With files from CTV Toronto.
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