Ontario reported a new pandemic high of 18,445 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday (January 1), the fourth straight day of record-breaking infections as the highly transmissible omicron variant continues to sweep across the province.
Saturday’s record exceeds the previous records of 16,713 new cases set on Friday, 13,807 on Thursday, and 10,436 on Wednesday. The seven-day average of new daily cases now stands at 12,496, more than double what it was only a week ago.
While Public Health Ontario released Saturday’s case numbers in its daily epidemilogical summary report, the Ontario government will not be updating its data — which includes hospitalizations and ICU usage — until Tuesday (January 4). As of Friday, there were 1,144 COVID-related hospitalizations in Ontario and 192 patients in ICUs due to COVID-19.
According to Public Health Ontario, it’s likely the actual number of Ontarians with COVID-19 is higher due to changes in the availability of testing because of the omicron variant.
Most of the new cases are in larger urban centres, including Toronto (4,721), Peel (1,730), York (1,711), Ottawa (1,482), and Hamilton (1,032).
In the greater Kawarthas region, Hastings Prince Edward is reporting 236 new cases, Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge is reporting 151, and Peterborough is reporting 144.
As of Friday, there were 2,405 active cases in the greater Kawarthas region, including 1,040 in Hastings Prince Edward, 746 in Peterborough, and 619 in Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge (352 in Northumberland, 231 in Kawartha Lakes, and 36 in Haliburton).
During a virtual media conference on Thursday, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Kieran Moore announced a series of changes to public health measures and guidance in the province.
The changes included limiting eligibility for PCR tests to high-risk people, reducing the isolation period for fully vaccinated people, reserving rapid antigen tests for health care and the highest-risk settings, restricting spectator capacity to 50 per cent of capacity or 1,000 people (whichever is less) indoors at sports venues, concert venues, and theatres, offering fourth doses to long-term care residents, mandating third doses for all long-term care staff, students, volunteers, caregivers, and support workers, and delaying the return to school by two days.
Notably absent from Thursday’s media conference were Ontario Premier Doug Ford, health minister and deputy premier Christine Elliott, and education minister Stephen Lecce, prompting widespread public criticism.
Ford’s last media conference was on December 17, when the province announced additional public health restrictions to contain the spread of the omicron variant. On that date, Ontario was reporting 3,124 new cases.
Saturday’s report of 18,445 new cases far exceeds the 10,000 cases by the end of December, projected on December 16 by Ontario’s science advisory table if people did not reduce their close contacts by at least 50 per cent.
