TORONTO -- Health officials in Ontario are reporting fewer than 2,400 new cases of COVID-19 Saturday.
The 2,359 infections mark a drop over Friday’s report when 2,662 cases were added and bring the province’s COVID-19 case total to 252,585, including deaths and recoveries.
Fifty-two of those deaths occurred in the previous day, 25 of which were residents in a long-term care home.
The Ministry of Health now considers 3,025 more cases to be resolved, a number that has been outpacing new infections in Ontario in recent days. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 222,287 people previously diagnosed with COVID-19 have recovered.
The data released by the government Saturday shows there are currently 24,545 active cases of the novel coronavirus across Ontario.
With 63,453 tests processed in the last 24 hours, the province’s COVID-19 positivity rate stands at 4.5 per cent.
Where are the new COVID-19 cases in Ontario?
Most of the cases reported Saturday were found in Toronto (708), Peel Region (422), York Region (220), Hamilton (107) and Windsor-Essex (100).
Toronto Mayor John Tory commented on the city’s numbers in a tweet published Saturday where he said case counts are heading in the “right direction.”
“Let’s keep it that way. Stay home this weekend, Toronto,” he said.
For context, the province reported 779 cases in Toronto on Friday, 897 (102 of which were attributed to a previous technical issue) on Thursday and 925 on Wednesday.
Toronto has consistently reported the highest daily COVID-19 case numbers in the province since the start of the pandemic.
Several other regions reported case numbers in the high double digits, including Niagara, Waterloo, Halton, Simcoe Muskoka and Durham Region.
Right now, there are 1,501 patients in hospital with COVID-19, down from the 1,512 reported a day earlier.
Of those patients, 395 are being treated in an intensive care unit and 299 are breathing with the assistance of a ventilator.
Update on COVID-19 vaccinations in Ontario
Health Minister Christine Elliott says that 276,146 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered throughout Ontario since inoculations began last month.
The province said that 11,161 of those shots were administered in the previous day.
At least 57,907 people have received both their first and second shots and are considered to be fully vaccinated.
Ontario is currently operating in Phase 1 of it’s vaccination rollout, which will see shots given to health-care workers in hospitals, long-term care homes and retirement homes, other congregate care settings and remote Indigenous communities
