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This is the Wednesday, March 31, 2021 coronavirus update. Residents in Oakville and Halton age 65-69 can now book vaccination appointments. Oakville's hospitalizations and school cases see a small drop but active cases keep rising in town and in Halton.
With 421 ICU patients in Ontario, the province's ICUs now have more COVID-19 patients than ever before. Active cases in the province have doubled in the last three weeks, and Premier Ford is asking residents not to make Easter plans for the second year in a row.
Canada's cumulative COVID-19 cases will surpass one million by the end of this week. France announces a third national lockdown as the USA reaches a vaccine milestone of 150 million administered doses.
Update on vaccine appointments: Halton residents who are 65 years of age and older (born 1956 or earlier) can now book their COVID-19 vaccine appointment at a Halton Region COVID-19 Vaccination Clinic.
Note: Oakville figures are updated seven days a week with Ontario and global cases. Schools do not update on weekends.
Oakville and Halton COVID-19 update
- Those age 65 and older can now book their vaccination appointment in Oakville and throughout Halton Region
- Oakville hospitalizations are down today after yesterday's 50% increase
- Halton's new cases per 100,000 has increased more than 20% in two weeks
- More than half of all active outbreaks in Halton Region are in workplaces
- There have been no deaths from COVID-19 in Halton for 12 days (the last was on March 19)
- Dr. Hamidah Meghani, Halton's Medical Officer of Health, has a new video update
Changes in figures are since the Oakville News update on March 30, 2021.
- 134 active cases - plus 9
- 15 patients at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital - minus 3
- 218 variant cases - plus 23
- 3,496 total cases (confirmed and probable) - plus 21
- 59 deaths - no change
- 3,303 recoveries - plus 12
- 3,362 completed (recoveries+deaths) cases - 96.3% of cases
- 5 outbreaks - no change
Status in Halton
- 443 active cases - plus 14
- 39 cases in hospitals across Halton - minus 4
- 695 variant cases - plus 63
- 10,981 total cases (confirmed+probable) - plus 78
- 200 deaths - no change
- 10,338 recoveries - plus 64
- 10,538 completed (recoveries+deaths) cases - 95.9% of cases
- 16 outbreaks - plus 1
Local schools update
- 28 active cases in Oakville - minus 2
- 83 active cases in Halton - minus 2
- 55 Halton classrooms closed - plus 4
Note: Halton Region's recovery count is combined into one number with probable, now closed cases. This total includes some cases that were not coronavirus recoveries.
Ontario COVID-19 update
- Active cases in Ontario are again above 20,000, up from 10,300 just three weeks ago
- With 421 ICU patients in Ontario, the province's ICUs now have more COVID-19 patients than ever before
- Premier Doug Ford says today: "Don't make plans for Easter. I won't hesitate to lock things down."
- Toronto Region is lowering the age for vaccinations to those 60 and older, and the city has now administered over half a million doses
- Peel, Toronto and York regions account for 59% of all new cases in the province
- Almost one-quarter (24.8%) of schools in Ontario have one or more active cases of COVID-19
- Seven-day average of new cases is at 2,207, up from 1,667 one week ago
- Testing is currently showing more than 67% of all new cases are variants of concern (and most are the B.1.1.7 variant)
Changes are from yesterday’s figures. Information released as of March 31, 2021 for the end of yesterday.
- 20,155 active cases - plus 345
- 1,111 people hospitalized - plus 21
- 1.78 million people have received at least one dose of vaccine (12.73% of pop.)
- 2.19 million vaccine doses administered
- 349,903 confirmed cases - plus 2,333
- 322,382 recovered cases - plus 1,973
- 7,366 deaths - plus 15
- 329,748 resolved cases (deaths & recovered) or 94.2%
- 52,532 tests conducted, coming back 4.8% positive
- 396 people in ICU** - plus 9
- 252 people on ventilators - plus 3
- 133 active, ongoing institutional outbreaks - no change
**This number has since been updated after the epidemiology reported was published earlier today. The true number is the pandemic-high 421 ICU patients as of this morning.
Summary of variants of concern (VOC)
- 1,898 confirmed cases of the B.1.1.7 variant - plus 98
- 70 confirmed cases of B.1.351 variant - plus 1
- 92 confirmed cases of P.1 variant - plus 2
- 21,346 cases with unknown, confirmed mutations - plus 1,229
Summary of school cases and outbreaks
- 2,381 cases reported in the last two weeks - plus 253
- 1,199 schools with at least one active case (24.8%) - plus 56
- 63 schools closed (1.3%) - plus 7
Canadian and global COVID-19 updates
- Cumulative infections of COVID-19 in Canada will surpass one million by the end of this week
- Pfizer-BioNTech moves a delivery of five million vaccine doses to Canada up two months; the late summer delivery will now arrive in June 2021
- 1.5 million AstraZeneca vaccine doses arrived from the USA yesterday - one day after its use has been suspended in those under age 55
- A record-high 200,000 doses of vaccine were administered in Canada yesterday
- Nearly 13% of Canada's population has received at least one dose of vaccine
- France will begin a third national lockdown, lasting at least one month
- The USA has administered over 150 million vaccine doses
Changes in Canadian figures are since the last Oakville News update, March 30, 2021. With the high number of cases nationwide and globally, all numbers are approximate (within 0.1% of the total.)
- 46,628 active cases - plus 1,554
- 4.88 million people have received at least one dose of vaccine (12.98% of pop.)
- 5.62 million vaccine doses administered
- 984,000 confirmed and suspected cases to date - plus 5,100
- 22,923 deaths - plus 36
- 914,400 recoveries - plus 3,450
USA COVID-19 status
- 30.21 million confirmed cases - plus 70,000
- 548,162 deaths - plus 866
- 150.8 million vaccine doses administered - plus 2.7 million
Global COVID-19 status
- 127.87 million confirmed cases - plus 520,000
- 2.79 million deaths
- At least 520.5 million vaccine doses administered
Sources:
