Waterloo Region passes 30K total COVID-19 infections; 69 in hospital

The Region of Waterloo has now passed 30,000 COVID-19 infections to date, and 69 people are in hospital receiving treatment for the disease.

Another 673 cases were added Friday. Of those cases, 654 were in the past 24 hours and the rest were added to previous days' totals.

To date, Waterloo Region has reported 30,023 cases, 24,789 recoveries and 317 deaths. A note on the region's COVID-19 dashboard says counts are an underestimate due to changes in testing eligibility.

There are at least 4,720 active cases in Waterloo Region.

Sixty-nine people are in hospital receiving treatment for COVID-19, including nine in the ICU.

There are 39 active outbreaks listed on the region's COVID-19 dashboard. That includes 22 outbreaks in retirement or long-term care homes, 12 in congregate settings and five in hospitals.

The region's variant of concern breakdown is as follows:

• 3,127 are the Alpha variant
• 21 are the Beta variant
• 98 are the Gamma variant
• 4,068 are the Delta variant
• 153 are the Omicron variant

Testing partners have performed 706,271 COVID-19 tests so far. The positivity rate rose again, now at 33.3 per cent. The reproductive rate is 1.2.

There have been a total of 1,126,987 vaccine doses administered in the region so far, including 192,411 third doses. Of the eligible population over the age of five, 86.52 per cent have one dose and 80.50 per have two doses.

Of the entire population, 81.90 per cent have one dose and 76.48 per cent have two doses.

Hospitalizations increased in Ontario Friday, now sitting at 2,472. ICU admissions jumped from 319 Thursday to 338 on Friday.

The province reported 11,899 new COVID-19 cases Friday. There were also 43 more deaths, though officials noted 42 of those occurred over the past 10 days and one was from more than a month ago.

To date, Ontario has reported 853,270 lab-confirmed cases of the disease, including 707,732 recoveries.

With files from CTV Toronto