The Ministry of Health reported that there were 1,091 patients in the hospital who tested positive for COVID-19, up from 857 on Monday and 778 a week ago.
Of these, 173 were in intensive care, up eight from the previous week.
Typically, about half of those admitted to acute care beds during the Omicron variant period were admitted for reasons other than COVID-19, but were also found to be positive for the virus.
In the ICU, approximately 75 to 80 percent of patients with COVID-19 are admitted as a direct result of coronavirus infection.
This is the first time that COVID-19 hospitalizations have exceeded 1,000 in Ontario since February 26.
The province also reported nine new net deaths on Tuesday.
The Ministry of Health said that six deaths occurred in the last 30 days and three occurred before this period.
There have been 65 deaths from COVID-19 in the last seven days in the province and 341 in the last 30 days.  There have been 12,479 confirmed COVID-19 deaths in Ontario since March 2020.
UHN Infectious Diseases Specialist Dr.  Isaac Bogoch says that whatever the macro data suggests, it is clear to him that there is a complete wave of COVID-19 emerging right now.
“It’s clear we have a wave now, it’s clear we have more cases than we did a week or two a week ago.”
Yesterday, Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford said the province was experiencing a “slight surge” in COVID-19 transmission, which the expanded capacity of hospitals could take care of without the need for further restrictions.
Meanwhile, Toronto’s chief physician strongly encouraged all residents to wear masks indoors, something that was legally required two weeks ago.
Bogoch said that simply relying on hospitals to swallow sick patients caused by this new wave is not a prudent strategy, because inevitably some of these people die.
“It is clear that we have more hospital capacity than we did at the peak of the last wave, for example, but you do not really want to get to a point where more and more people are being hospitalized.  “Unfortunately, some of these people are dying.”
Of the 1,991 cases detected by PCR on Tuesday, the Department of Health said 258 were partially vaccinated or unvaccinated, 541 were two-dose, 1,115 were three-dose and 77 were unknown vaccination status.
The province says 6,195 doses of the vaccine were given Monday.
Of these, 745 were the first installments, 1,244 were the second installments and 3,150 were the third installments.
Across the entire population of Ontario, 84.3 percent of residents have at least one vaccine dose, 81.1 percent two doses, and 48.1 percent three doses.
The numbers used in this story are in the Ontario Department of Health’s Daily Epidemiological Summary COVID-19.  The number of cases for any city or region may differ slightly from that reported by the province, as local units report data at different times.