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2/9 The province also announced York will move back into the COVID-19 response framework at the Red-Control level, and Lambton in southwestern Ontario will move from Orange-Restrict to Red-Control as a result of worsening public health trends in that region over the past week. "These are difficult but necessary decisions, in order to protect against COVID-19 variants and maintain the progress we have all made together," said Ontario health minister Christine Elliott. "Until vaccines are widely available, we continue to urge all Ontarians to follow public health advice and measures, and stay home, stay safe, and save lives." With today's new cases, the seven-day average of daily cases in Ontario has increased by 10 to 1,026. In the greater Kawarthas region, there are 15 new cases to report and 5 additional cases resolved, with the number of active cases across the region increasing by 9 to 99. There are 2 new COVID-related deaths in Kawartha Lakes. Most of today's new cases are in Toronto (376), Peel (264), and York (108). There are double-digit increases in Ottawa (73), Hamilton (43), Durham (41), Waterloo (41), Halton (37), Simcoe Muskoka (23), Windsor-Essex (22), Niagara (17), Wellington-Dufferin- Guelph (17), Thunder Bay (15), and Eastern Ontario (12), with smaller increases in Lambton (7), Porcupine (6), Southwestern (6), and Haldimand-Norfolk (6). The remaining 16 health units are reporting 5 or fewer new cases, with 3 health units reporting no new cases at all. Of today's new cases, 55% are among people 39 and younger, with the highest number of cases (453) among people ages 20-39, followed by 326 cases among people ages 40-59. With 1,255 more cases resolved since yesterday, the percentage of resolved cases remains unchanged at 94.0%. The average positivity rate across Ontario has decreased by 0.1% from yesterday to 2.1%, meaning that 21 out of every 1,000 tests performed were positive for COVID-19 on February 18. Ontario is reporting 47 new COVID-19 deaths today, including 18 in long-term care homes. Ontario has averaged 27 new daily deaths over the past week, an increase of 4 from yesterday. Hospitalizations have increased by 69 from yesterday to 689, with the number of patients with COVID-19 in ICUs decreasing by 8 to 269 and the number of patients with COVID-19 on ventilators decreasing by 2 to 190. A total of 65,372 tests were completed yesterday, with the backlog of tests under investigation decreasing by 4,562 to 39,970.