Canada's Ontario province hits single-day record of 4,456 new COVID-19 cases

A man wearing a face mask arrives at a COVID-19 vaccine clinic in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, on April 6, 2021. (Photo by Zou Zheng/Xinhua)

The patients with COVID-19 in intensive care units surpassed 600 for the first time in the province since the pandemic outbreak.

OTTAWA, April 11 (Xinhua) -- Ontario, Canada's most populous province with a population of 14 million, reported 4,456 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, the highest single day case count since the pandemic started last year.

The report brought the cumulative total number of COVID-19 cases to 386,608, including 7,552 deaths and 346,239 recoveries.

As of Sunday morning, Canada reported a cumulative total of 1,058,530 cases, including 23,313 deaths and 962,549 recoveries, according to CTV.

The province's positivity rate also rose on Sunday. With 56,378 tests processed in the last 24 hours, the province said its COVID-19 positivity rate increased from 6.5 percent on Saturday to 7.7 percent on Sunday.

The patients with COVID-19 in intensive care units surpassed 600 for the first time in the province since the pandemic outbreak.

The province reported on Sunday more than 1,513 people are currently in hospital due to the disease. At least 605 of these patients are being treated in ICUs and 382 are breathing with the assistance of a ventilator.

The Ontario government issued two emergency orders Friday midnight to help increase critical care capacity in the province after hospitals were ordered to ramp down on elective surgeries amid surging COVID-19 cases.

The Ontario government entered a provincewide stay-at-home order on Thursday to stem the COVID-19 spread. The order closed all non-essential businesses for in-person shopping for at least a month in order to deal with the ongoing third wave of the deadly disease.

The province reported 1,174 new cases of the B.1.1.7 variant on Sunday. The total case count for the strain now stands at 14,387.

It also confirmed two new cases of the B.1.351 variant, bringing the total case count in the province to 78 on Sunday while the number of the P.1 variant remains at 134.

The province reported that 333,150 people have received both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as of Saturday.