by: joanne laucius
there were 660 new cases of covid-19 and one new death reported in ontario wednesday.
of the new cases, 525 were not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status, and 135 are fully vaccinated, ontario minister of health christine elliott tweeted on wednesday morning.
since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been 560,637 confirmed cases of covid-19 and 9,472 deaths.
as of wednesday, 283 people were in hospital, not including those in icu. of these, 253 are not fully vaccinated, or have an unknown vaccinated status, while 30 are fully vaccinated.
of the 161 people in icu with covid-related critical illness, 130 are currently testing positive for covid, while 31 are no longer testing positive.
there are 73 patients testing positive for covid currently on ventilators in ontario. a further 19 patients are on ventilators, but are no longer testing positive.
the effective reproduction number, or r(e), is 1.25. the r(e) number is an estimate of the average number of people one person with covid-19 will infect. a number lower than 1 indicates the virus is receding.
according to public health ontario, 29 new confirmed cases were reported in ottawa; one new case in leeds, grenville and lanark; two new cases in the eastern ontario public health unit and none in renfrew county.