TORONTO -- Ontario is reporting a decrease in new COVID-19 cases a day after adding a record-breaking 1,925 infections.
Health officials logged 1,676 cases Tuesday, which is the lowest single-day case count since Nov. 26 when 1,478 infections were added.
Testing for COVID-19 in Ontario was also down with just over 39,000 tests completed in the last 24 hours, far lower than the province’s own goal of 50,000 tests processed per day.
With that, Ontario’s positivity rate for the disease stands at five per cent, up a full percentage point over Monday’s total.
Ontario has reported 130,910 cases of the novel coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic, including deaths and recoveries.
Ten of those deaths occurred over the past 24 hours, pushing the province’s COVID-19 death toll to 3,808.
Meanwhile, 1,549 more cases are now considered to be resolved. At least 110,951 people previously diagnosed with COVID-19 in Ontario have recovered.
Number of COVID-19 hospitalizations continues to climb
The number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 has increased significantly over the last 24 hours.
Sixty-nine more patients are currently in hospital with the disease which sets the total number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in Ontario to 794.
Of those nearly 800 patients, at least 219 are currently being treated in an intensive care unit (ICU). That number is also up by six patients since Monday.
There are 132 patients in the ICU breathing with the assistance of a ventilator.
The Ontario government said last month that it becomes nearly impossible to treat non-COVID-19-related patients once there are more than 300 patients in intensive care.
Modelling released last month suggested that Ontario could cross that key threshold by mid-December.
Where are the new COVID-19 cases?
The bulk of the new COVID-19 cases were found in just two regions of Ontario.
Toronto continues to report the highest number of new COVID-19 infections with 588 cases logged.
Peel Region added 349 new cases, which is down from the 512 infections recorded a day earlier.
Both regions are currently operating in the “grey zone’” of the province’s colour coded COVID-19 framework, which forced the closure of most non-essential services almost two weeks ago.
Those restrictions are set to last a minimum of 28 days.
The only other area reporting case numbers in the triple digits is York Region, which is currently placed in the “red zone," one step lower than the measures found in the “grey zone”
Several other regions recorded case numbers in the double digits, including the City of Hamilton, Halton Region, Waterloo, Durham Region and Windsor-Essex. Those areas are also operating under the “red zone” level restrictions.
There are currently 40,732 COVID-19 tests currently under investigation.
