TORONTO -- Ontario is once again reporting fewer than 200 new cases of COVID-19, a day after the province recorded a small uptick in the number of new patients infected with the novel coronavirus.
The 163 new lab-confirmed cases bring the total number of COVID-19 infections in Ontario to 34,016—a 0.5 per cent increase over Tuesday’s total, when 216 cases were added.
“With 229 more resolved, there are now also 66 fewer active cases in the province,” Ontario’s Health Minister Christine Elliott said in a tweet Wednesday morning.
The number of patients who have recovered from the virus continues to outpace the number of new cases reported daily. As of today, 86 per cent of all confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ontario are resolved.
The report comes as Toronto and Peel Region both moved into the next stage of the province's reopening plan at midnight on Wednesday. Windsor-Essex is the only region in the province that has not moved on to the next stage, due to an outbreak among migrant workers.
Of the province's 34 public health units, 30 reported five or fewer new cases today, which represents a "new high," according to Elliott.
"That’s welcome news as we continue to safely and gradually reopen the province," she said.
Wednesday's epidemiologic summary shows that Toronto and Peel Region account for most of the new cases reported today, with 71 and 33 new infections confirmed, respectively.
Five new cases were reported in Windsor-Essex.
At least 2,631 people in Ontario have died as a result of COVID-19, with 12 deaths occurring in the last 24-hour period.
Currently, there are 278 COVID-19 patients in hospital with COVID-19, down 10 patients since yesterday. Seventy-three of those patients are being treated in an intensive care unit, 48 of which are breathing with the assistance of a ventilator.
Update on testing for COVID-19
The province performed more than 20,000 tests for COVID-19 since Tuesday, up from the 16,189 tests completed a day earlier. In the last 24-hour period, 23,207 tests were processed.
In total, more than 1.2 million tests have been performed for the virus across Ontario since the beginning of the pandemic. At least 21,398 tests remain under investigation.
