Canada's COVID-19 cases surpass 900,000

Canada's cumulative COVID-19 cases surpassed 900,000 as of Friday morning, with the total hitting 901,129, including 22,389 deaths, reported Xinhua, quoting CTV.

Ontario, the most populous province with a population of more than 14 million, reported 1,371 new COVID-19 cases and 18 deaths Friday morning.

The latest report brought Ontario's COVID-19 case total to 314,891, including 296,252 recoveries and 7,127 deaths.

The province has processed 64,611 tests in the last 24 hours, producing a positivity rate of 2.4 percent. Its seven-day average number of cases reported stands at 1,269. A week ago, that number was 1,062.

There are 11,512 active cases of COVID-19 across Ontario.

On Thursday, the province warned that the spread of COVID-19 variants throughout the province could push its daily COVID-19 case counts as high as 8,000 in a worst-case scenario, based on new modeling data.

Ontario's COVID-19 Science Advisory Table said that it has found that 42 percent of Ontario's COVID-19 cases are variants of concern.

As of Thursday evening, Canada reported a total of 2,986 variants of concern cases, including 2,728 cases of the B.1.1.7 variant, 215 cases of the B.1.351 variant and 43 cases of the P.1 variant, Theresa Tam, Canada's chief public health officer, tweeted Friday morning.

According to Tam, the variant numbers have been the highest in Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec, respectively.