TORONTO -- Ontario health officials are reporting fewer than 1,100 new cases of COVID-19 for the second straight day.

Officials recorded 1,072 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Wednesday. Just the day before, the province reported 1,022 new cases, which marked the lowest daily total reported since November.

The province has recorded fewer than 1,500 new cases of COVID-19 for five days in row now with 1,265 infections logged on Monday, as well as 1,489 cases logged on Sunday and 1,388 cases logged on Saturday.

With more than 50,000 tests completed, the Ontario Ministry of Health reported a positivity rate of 2.5 per cent on Wednesday.

The province’s seven-day average for number of cases recorded is now 1,352, down from 1,675 one week ago.

Health officials also reported that 41 more people have died due to the disease, including 13 people who were residents in long-term care homes. In total, the province has recorded 6,596 deaths related to the novel coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.

Officials reported that 948 people are currently in hospital due to COVID-19. Of those patients, more than 313 are in intensive care, and 226 are breathing with the assistance of a ventilator.

The province also deemed 1,709 more cases of the disease to be resolved as of Wednesday, bringing Ontario’s number of recovered patients up to 261,700.

Wednesday’s case count brings the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Ontario to 281,566, including deaths and recoveries.

Officials confirmed also there have been 228 cases of the U.K. variant, also known as B.1.1.7, and three cases of the South African variant, also known as B.1.351, found in Ontario as of Wednesday.

Where are the COVID-19 cases in Ontario?

Of the 1,022 cases reported on Wednesday, health officials said that 393 were in Toronto, 196 were in Peel Region and 125 were in York Region.

Several other regions in Ontario reported COVID-19 cases numbers in the double digits, including Waterloo (47), Ottawa (40), Hamilton (28), Halton Region (28), Windsor-Essex (24), Middlesex-London (22) and Durham Region (21).

Ontario Premier Doug Ford implemented a stay-at-home order for the province on Jan. 14, but on Monday, he announced that his government would start gradually moving parts of the province back into its colour-coded framework.

Three public health units—Hastings Prince Edward Public Health, Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox Addington Public Health, Renfrew County and District Health Unit—will move into the “green-prevent” phase of the framework on Wednesday.

Each of those public health reported fewer than four cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday.

The stay-at-home order will remain in effect in Toronto, Peel Region and York Region until at least Feb. 22. In all other regions, except for the three in the green stage, the stay-at-home order will stay in effect until Feb. 15.

There were 52,504 COVID-19 tests completed in the province in the last-recorded 24-hour period. There are 41,725 COVID-19 tests under investigation. In total, Ontario has processed more than 10 million tests since the pandemic began in January.

So far, 412,119 initial doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Ontario, including 13,486 doses administered in the past 24 hours. The vaccine requires a booster shot and, as such, 125,725 vaccinations have been completed as of Wednesday. 

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NOTE: The numbers used in this story are found in the Ontario Ministry of Health's COVID-19 Daily Epidemiologic Summary. The number of cases for any city or region may differ slightly from what is reported by the province, because local units report figures at different times.