Canadian Covid cases surpass 1.5 million

Ontario, Canada's most populous province with 14 million people, reported 656 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday with 13 additional deaths, Xinhua news agency reported. 

The province's virus-related death toll came to 9,516 out of 566,206 patients. There were 339 patients in hospital infected with COVID-19. Out of the 339 patients, 163 were in intensive care units. 

Of the total patients in ICU, 157 were unvaccinated, 14 were partially vaccinated and 36 were fully vaccinated. 

Ontario had spotted a total of 10,543 cases of the Delta variant as of Wednesday. 

As of Wednesday, 9,964,336 people had received both doses of vaccines and were considered to be fully vaccinated. 

Quebec, another populous province, reported 690 new cases on Wednesday. Among them 503 of those had not received a vaccine, while 64 received one dose more than two weeks ago, and 123 received both vaccine doses more than a week ago. 

Quebec's VaxiCode passport for fully vaccinated citizens went into effect in the province for certain non-essential services on Wednesday. 

Quebec's total number of infections since the start of the pandemic stood at 389,914 with 373,897 of those reportedly having recovered from the disease. 

The province also added two more deaths, bringing that total to 11,288 since March 2020. 

There were 138 patients receiving care in the province's hospitals. Of those, 40 people were in intensive care wards, an increase of four. 

In total, 12,366,735 doses of vaccine had been administered in Quebec, and 92,036 Quebecers received their jabs out of province. 

Of those eligible to receive a dose, 6,488,573 people, or 86 percent, had received one dose of vaccine, and 5,932,989, or 79 percent, had received two doses.