The Ministry of Health reports that 1,188 people are currently being treated for the virus, from 1,135 yesterday and 855 a week ago.  Today marks almost 40 percent increase in hospitalizations from week to week.
Forty-five percent of hospitalized patients were admitted to the hospital for COVID-19-related reasons and 55 percent were admitted for reasons other than the virus, but were also found to be COVID-19 positive.
Meanwhile, 168 of the hospitalized patients are being treated in the intensive care unit, an increase of three compared to seven days ago.
The ministry says 64 percent of ICU patients were admitted for virus-related reasons and 36 percent were taken to hospital for other reasons, but then tested positive for COVID-19.
The county reported 11 more virus-related deaths today, up from 10 last month and one more than a month ago.  Two of the deaths were residents of long-term care.
To date, Ontario has reported 12,548 deaths from COVID-19 as of March 2020.
The province conducted more than 18,600 tests in the last 24 hours, with a positive rate of 18.4%, up from 17.1% a week ago, according to the ministry.
Another 3,797 laboratory-confirmed cases were reported today, but the daily number of cases is still significant due to limited testing.
Of the latter cases, 2,286 of the individuals have received three doses, 937 have received two doses, 423 have not been fully vaccinated and 151 have an unknown vaccination status.
Earlier this week, the head of the county’s science board said Ontario is likely to see more than 100,000 new COVID-19 cases each day.
“Based on our sewage analysis, as soon as we reached the peak we were in early January and at that time, we were in about 100,000 to 120,000 new cases a day,” Dr. Peter Jüni told CP24 on Wednesday.  “What it basically means is that about 5 percent of Ontario currently has an active infection.”
Jüni attributed the sharp rise in cases to the government’s removal of mandatory coverage in most regulations, which came into force last month.
To date, 90 percent of Ontario residents aged five and over have received one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, 86 percent have received two doses, and 51 percent have received three doses.
The numbers used in this story are in the Ontario Department of Health’s Daily Epidemiological Summary COVID-19.  The number of cases for any city or region may differ slightly from that reported by the province, as local units report data at different times.