TORONTO -- Following a five-day stretch in which Ontario steadily logged more than 400 cases of COVID-19, health officials reported a sharp decline in positive patients, marking the lowest number of daily cases in nearly two months.

On Tuesday, officials added 287 new cases of the novel coronavirus and 21 more deaths.

The last time the number of daily COVID-19 cases was this low was on March 31, when 260 new cases were confirmed in a 24-hour period.

After 10 days where the daily case counts were below 400 in Ontario, health officials confirmed 427 new patients on May 19. The number dropped the following day, but then it climbed to 413, 441, 412, 460, and 404.

On Monday, Ontario’s health minister said the concerning trend could be due to people breaking social gathering rules on Mother’s Day weekend.

The new patients reported Tuesday bring the total number of lab-confirmed cases of the disease in Ontario to 26,191, including 2,123 deaths and 19,958 recoveries.

According to Tuesday’s epidemiologic summary, eight of Ontario’s deceased COVID-19 patients were between the ages of 20 and 39. There have been no deaths recorded in people 19 years of age or younger. Eighty-five of all deceased patients in the province were between the ages of 40 and 59 and 553 people were between the ages of 60 and 79.

People 80 years of age or older continue to be the hardest hit age group with 1,477 deaths.

The province is reporting 297 outbreaks in Ontario’s long-term care homes and 123 in retirement homes. There are 82 outbreaks in hospitals across the province.

As of Tuesday there are 848 people in the hospital as a result of COVID-19, and of those patients 143 are in the intensive care unit (ICU). The majority of the ICU patients –113—are using ventilators.

In Ontario, more than 4,400 health-care workers have contracted COVID-19.

COVID-19 testing in Ontario

In the last 24 hours, the province conducted 9,875 COVID-19 tests, a far cry from their goal of 20,000 tests a day.

Over the weekend, Ontario Premier Doug Ford encouraged everyone to get tested and said that his government will be releasing a “detailed testing strategy” shortly.

A little more than 6,900 tests are under investigation. To date, health officials have conducted more than 629,000 COVID-19 tests.

Quick facts on all COVID-19 patients in Ontario:

• 43.1 per cent of all patients in the province are male and 56 per cent are female – 226 cases did not specify male or female gender

• 40.7 per cent of all patients are 60 years of age or older – 16 cases did not specify their age

• 3.3 per cent of all patients are 19 years of age or younger

• 25.4 per cent of all patients are between the ages of 20 and 39

• 30.6 per cent of all patients are between the ages of 40 and 59

• 20.5 per cent of all patients are between the ages of 60 and 79

• 20.2 per cent of all patients are 80 years of age or older

• Public health units in the Greater Toronto Area account for 65.1 per cent of all cases

• 5.8 per cent of all patients had travelled in the 14 days prior to becoming ill

• 60.8 per cent of all patients had close contact with a previously confirmed case or were "outbreak-associated"

• 13.3 per cent of all patients had "sporadic community transmission"

• 20.1 per cent of all patients had exposure information listed as "missing or unknown"