Ottawa gets 4,875 more COVID-19 vaccine doses

Enhanced screening and sequencing: The provincial diagnostic lab network is increasing their capacity to screen all positive COVID-19 tests in Ontario for known variants within 48 to 72 hours after initial processing.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says "rare exceptions" to new travel restrictions will be made on compassionate grounds, but that more contagious COVID-19 variants now taking hold in Canada mean tough rules must be implemented in the next few weeks.

The Province has confirmed 109 cases of the United Kingdom variant of COVID-19 and 1 case of the South African variant.

The weekly incidence rate in Ontario is 85.9 cases per 100,000 people from Jan. 24 to Jan. 30, which is a decrease of 20.7 per cent compared to Jan. 18 to Jan. 24 when the average weekly incidence rate was 108.3 cases per 100,000 people.

There were 1,066 hospitalizations in Ontario Wednesday while 336 patients were in intensive care units with 254 on a ventilator.

On the vaccination front, Ontario administered 3,716 doses in the past 24-hour reporting period, and as of 8 p.m. Tuesday had administered 348,331 doses.

The decrease in supply of the Moderna vaccine is in addition to further reductions in Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine shipments from the federal government, which resulted in no deliveries for the week of January 25, 2021, and a reduced shipment of just over 26,000 doses for the first week of February.

39,275 people are 60 to 79 - an increase of 161 cases.

The province notes that not all cases have a reported age or gender.

The province said Wednesday that individual public health units continue to reserve the authority to close schools to in-person learning based on local circumstances.

Lecce said local public health departments will continue to have the authority to close schools if there is a public health threat.

The province notes there may be a reporting delay for deaths.

Almost half of the city's long-term care residents have had their second vaccine dose.

Today's report includes 67 new deaths, 29 of whom were residents at long-term care homes.

The ministry also indicated there are now 763 active cases among long-term care residents and 801 active cases among staff - down by 92 cases and down by 37 cases, respectively, in the last day.