Ontario and Lambton County are reporting rapid growth in the number of COVID-19 cases today.

In Ontario, 5,790 new cases were reported, the vast majority of them in people who have been vaccinated. It’s the highest number of cases reported during the pandemic with the previous high was 4,812 on April 16. There were 1,676 cases a week ago. Ontario also reported another seven deaths due to COVID-19.

In Lambton, 57 more cases have been reported and another person at Bluewater Health has died of the virus. That brings the county’s death toll to 80 during the course of the pandemic. The hospital has 17 people with COVID-19 in the hospital now.

In all there are 206 people ill with the virus and 10 declared outbreaks. Eight of those are in businesses, and two school outbreaks – one at Brights Grove and the other at John Knox Christian School in Wyoming – have yet to be cleared.

While the number of cases is rapidly increasing, officials say the amount of serious illness is not climbing rapidly. Right now, there are 161 people in the province’s intensive care beds with COVID-19. Public health officials say while the number of people getting severely ill right now seems lower, they’re concerned if we have thousands of cases of the virus, more people will end up in the ICU, straining the system.

And health care experts note with long waits to have PCR testing complete in some parts of the province – it can take up to a week to book a test to confirm you have COVID-19 – it’s not clear exactly how many cases there actually are right now.