Ontario reports 848 new COVID-19 cases; 11 new deaths
Ontario reported 848 new COVID-19 cases and 11 more deaths on Friday, as the province’s known active caseload has appeared to stabilize in the low-6,000 range for the last several days.
The seven-day rolling average of new cases now stands at 729, up from 723 yesterday but down from 732 one week ago.
A new COVID-19 variant ‘Mu’ has been detected in Ontario. Just how worried should we be about reports it could be vaccine resistant?
The good news is that the number of global cases of Mu, or B.1.621 as it is officially called, is tiny compared to those of the highly transmissible Delta and has even decreased in some regions in recent months.
But the bad news is that since Mu was first detected in Colombia in January, the variant has spread to some 42 countries, including 49 U.S. states. In Miami, Fla., alone, Mu is responsible for about 10 per cent of all COVID patients, behind Delta.
In Ontario, the variant was first detected on June 23 and has since been found 168 times in the province, mostly in the GTA.
