This dataset compiles daily counts of patients (both COVID-related and non-COVID-related) in adult and pediatric ICU beds and the number of adult and pediatric ICU beds that are unoccupied.
Effective November 14, 2024 this page will no longer be updated. Information about COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses is available on Public Health Ontario’s interactive respiratory virus tool: https://www.publichealthontario.ca/en/Data-and-Analysis/Infectious-Disease/Respiratory-Virus-Tool
Data includes:
- date
- number of adults in ICU for COVID-related critical illness (CRCI)**
- number of adults in ICU for non-CRCI reasons
- number of adult ICU beds that are unoccupied
- total number of adults in ICU for any reason
- number of patients in pediatric ICU for COVID-related critical illness (CRCI)**
- number of patients in pediatric ICU beds for non-CRCI reasons
- number of pediatric ICU beds that are unoccupied
- total number of patients in pediatric ICU beds for any reason
**These results may not match the CRCI cases in ICU reported elsewhere (on Ontario.ca) as they are restricted to either adults only or pediatric patients only and do not include cases in other ICU bed types.
- ICU data includes patients in levels 2 and 3 adult or pediatric ICU beds. The reported numbers reflect the previous day’s values. Patients are counted at a single point in time (11:59 pm) to ensure that each person is only counted once, and their COVID status is updated at 6 am, prior to posting. This may vary slightly from similar sources who update at different times.
- COVID-related critical illness (CRCI) includes patients currently testing positive for COVID and patients in ICU due to COVID who are no longer testing positive for COVID.
- Since the start of the pandemic, the province has invested in “incremental” ICU beds to accommodate potential surges in ICU demand due to COVID. These beds were added at various points in time (i.e., October 2020, February 2021, April 2021) to ensure system preparedness and meet operational needs. Aligned with the decline of Wave 3 and COVID-related pressures and at the direction of Ontario Health, a number of these beds were brought offline in July 2021. These events account for the sudden increases and/or decreases in ICU beds seen in the data. The number of ICU beds continues to fluctuate slightly as beds are brought on and offline to meet localized demands/need.
Modifications to this data
Data for the period of October 24, 2023 to March 24, 2024 excludes hospitals in the West region who were experiencing data availability issues.
Daily adult, pediatric, and neonatal patient ICU census data were impacted by technical issues between September 9 and October 20, 2023. As a result, when public reporting resumes on November 16, 2023, historical ICU data for this time period will be excluded.
January 18, 2022: Information on pediatric ICU beds was added to the file for the period of May 2020 to present.
January 7, 2022: Due to some methodology changes, historical data were impacted during the following timeframes:
- May 1, 2020 to October 22, 2020.
- February 19, 2021 to July 26, 2021.
How the data was impacted
To ensure system preparedness throughout the pandemic, hospitals were asked to identify the number of beds (i.e., non-ICU beds) and related resources that could be made available within 24 hours for use as an ICU bed in case of a surge in COVID patients. These beds were considered expanded ICU capacity and were not used to calculate hospitals’ ICU occupancy. These beds were previously included in this data.
The current numbers include only funded ICU beds based on data from the Critical Care Information System (CCIS).
