Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario reporting another 318 cases of COVID-19 and 12 more deaths for Sunday
The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Sunday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.
10:17 a.m. (Updated 11:04 a.m.): Ontario is reporting another 318 COVID-19 cases and 12 more deaths, according to its latest report released Sunday morning.
Ontario has administered 184,251 vaccine doses since its last daily update, with 12,551,150 vaccines given in total as of 8 p.m. the previous night.
According to the Star's vaccine tracker, 9,676,870 people in Ontario have received at least one shot. That works out to approximately 65.7 per cent of the total population and the equivalent of 76 per cent of the adult population.
The province says 2,874,280 people have completed their vaccinations, which means they've had both doses. That works out to approximately 19.5 per cent of the total population and the equivalent of 23.6 per cent of the adult population.
The province says 21,063 tests were completed the previous day, with a 1.7 per cent positivity rate.
There are 266 people currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in the province, including 333 patients in intensive care. There are 208 people on ventilators.
Locally, Health Minister Christine Elliott says there are 51 new cases in the Region of Waterloo, 49 in Peel, 45 in Toronto, 26 in Ottawa and 20 in Hamilton.
Read the full story by Rhythm Sachdeva here.
Sunday 8:35 a.m.: Through the long winter and into the frantic first weeks of the third wave, critical care staff at the Hospital for Sick Children could only watch as their colleagues across the province struggled to keep up with the flood of COVID-19 patients streaming into overstretched ICUs.
They were grateful the virus largely spared children, and that detailed plans to manage a surge of critically ill kids weren't needed. But staff felt helpless as COVID patients threatened to overwhelm neighbouring hospitals.
Then, at the beginning of April, after provincial modelling predicted there could be 800 COVID patients in ICUs and physicians worried about the grim possibility of rationing care, Sick Kids enacted its pandemic plan of last resort.
For the first time in its history, the hospital would admit adult patients as part of a provincial response.
There was a desperate desire to be helpful," said Jackie Hubbert, clinical director of the hospital's pediatric intensive care unit.
We felt like we had been watching from the sidelines. Our colleagues (in other hospitals) had been working so hard, and the situation was so devastating, their resources so stretched ... in many ways it was a relief to finally be able to help."
Sick Kids accepted its first two adult COVID patients on April 8. Days later, the new eight-bed unit was filled, and staff were seeing firsthand how the virus attacked bodies and ravaged lungs.
I don't think we understood until we saw them - had them in our building - how sick the patients can be," said Jason Macartney, Sick Kids' clinical manager of respiratory therapy.