This is the Friday, August 20, 2021 coronavirus update. Active cases in Oakville, throughout Ontario and across Canada keep rising, with the totals at all three levels having doubled in less than two weeks.
There is a concern over the number of patients in hospitals and ICUs rising again. In the last week, Ontario’s hospitalizations are up 60% and Canada’s ICU patients have more than doubled.
Ontario today reports 650 new cases, the most on a single day this summer. Most Canadian provinces also report growing case numbers as vaccination has stalled with few people left willing to get a first dose. Alberta and British Columbia in particular lead cases nationwide.
Canada’s Chief Electoral Officer Stephane Perrault assures Canadians that voting in next month’s federal election will be safe, even though staff working the polls will not be required to be vaccinated.
Finally, the United States has extended its land border closure with Canada another month to September 21, 2021, which will bring the total closure to 18 consecutive months, since America stopped allowing Canadians at land borders in March 2020.
**Vaccine booking update: Halton is now booking first AND second dose vaccinations for all residents age 12 and older. Halton is also now offering same-day, walk-in appointments at multiple locations.
All vaccines approved for use in Canada are highly effective in protecting you against COVID-19 and all known variants of concern, including the Delta variant.
Note: Oakville figures, including Halton vaccine updates, are again being published seven days a week. Effective August 9, 2021, Oakville News will share Halton’s new data from Monday to Friday and Ontario, Canada, daily global updates.
Oakville and Halton COVID-19 update
- Oakville’s active cases are again higher today, but Halton’s is down by a few cases
- Hospitalizations in town and regionally are up this week
- The one hospital recovery today in Halton is from Oakville
- Mayor Rob Burton comments on the “drastic and unexpected drop in vaccinations,” urging everyone to get vaccinated and to share ideas on how to “encourage more unvaccinated people to get their first dose.”
Summary of local vaccinations
- 77% of eligible Halton residents are fully vaccinated
- 83% have received at least one dose
- 824,536 vaccine doses have been administered – plus 1,442
Changes in figures are since the last Oakville News update yesterday, on August 19, 2021.
- 42 active cases – plus 2
- 1 patient at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital – minus 1
- 5,795 total cases (confirmed and probable) – plus 7
- 67 deaths – no change
- 5,686 recoveries – plus 5
- 5,753 completed (recoveries+deaths) cases – 99.3% of cases
- 1,862 variant cases – no change
- 1 active outbreak – no change
Status in Halton
- 121 active cases – minus 3
- 7 cases in hospitals across Halton – minus 1
- 18,515 total cases (confirmed+probable) – plus 23
- 237 deaths – no change
- 18,157 recoveries – plus 26
- 18,394 completed (recoveries+deaths) cases – 99.3% of cases
- 6,164 variant cases – no change
- 4 active outbreaks – no change
Note: Halton Region combines its recovery count into one number with probable, now closed cases. This total includes some cases that were not coronavirus recoveries. Halton Region does not publish the names of workplaces with active outbreaks.
Ontario COVID-19 update
Summary of provincial vaccinations
- 10.68 million people have received at least one vaccine dose (72.25% of total pop.)
- At least 9.70 million people are fully vaccinated (65.58%)
- 20.38 million vaccine doses administered – plus 45,700
Changes are from figures over 24 hours. The province released this information on August 20, 2021, as of the end of yesterday.
- 4,447 active cases – plus 204
- 197 people hospitalized – plus 21
- 558,101 confirmed cases – plus 650
- 544,204 recovered cases – plus 444
- 9,450 deaths – plus 2
- 553,654 resolved cases (deaths & recovered) or 99.2%
- 28,635 tests conducted with a positive rate of 2.4%
- 135 people in ICU – plus 4
- 77 people on ventilators – plus 4
- 8 active, ongoing institutional outbreaks – minus 1
Note: There were discrepancies with ICU and hospitalization numbers in Ontario for almost two months; some days, the number of people in hospital was less than that of those in the ICU, which is impossible.
During that time, Oakville News was only reporting ICU and ventilator patients still testing positive for COVID-19. Earlier this week, Ontario corrected these numbers, and so we now are again reporting all ICU cases.
Summary of variants of concern (VOC)
Variant case data has not been updated since Wednesday, August 18, 2021. Here are the numbers from that day:
- 145,705 confirmed cases of the Alpha variant – plus 11
- 1,496 confirmed cases of Beta variant – plus 3
- 5,206 confirmed cases of Gamma variant – plus 23
- 6,656 confirmed cases of Delta variant – plus 117
Canadian and Global COVID-19 updates
Summary of national vaccinations
- 27.57 million people have received at least one vaccine dose (72.30% of total pop.)
- At least 24.60 million people are fully vaccinated (64.53%)
- 52.17 million vaccine doses administered – plus 101,000
Changes in figures are since the Oakville News update on August 19, 2021. With the high number of cases nationwide and globally, all numbers are approximate (within 0.1% of the total.)
- 22,530 active cases – plus 1,685
- 751 active hospitalizations – plus 35
- 1.46 million confirmed and suspected cases to date
- 1.41 million recoveries – plus 1,630
- 26,787 deaths – plus 10
- Ranked 72nd in global deaths per capita at 70.81 per 100,000 people
US COVID-19 Update
- 37.40 million cumulative cases
- 624,213 deaths – plus 979
- 60.4% of people have one dose (70.6% of those age 12+ who are eligible)
- 51.2% are fully vaccinated (59.9% of those eligible)
- Ranked 22nd in global deaths per capita at 187.92 per 100,000 people
World COVID-19 Update
- 209.20 million cases
- 4.39 million people have died worldwide
- At least 4.84 billion vaccine doses have been administered worldwide (source: Our World Data)
Sources:
