After two consecutive days of daily case counts below 2,000, the number of new COVID-19 infections reported in the province jumped up to 2,400 on Thursday.
Today's total is up significantly from the 1,588 cases confirmed on Wednesday and the 1,616 infections reported on Tuesday but down from the 2,759 cases reported last Thursday.
Dr. David Williams, Ontario's chief medical officer of health, said today's increase is very likely due to data reporting issues on previous days.
"We saw a number of areas where there numbers were very low on the day or two prior and are up substantially today," he said at a news conference on Thursday afternoon.
"My guess is there is a data entry issue so probably while today may actually be lower, the two numbers on the days before are probably higher."
The rolling seven-day average has dropped to 2,131 today, down from 2,183 on Wednesday and 2,729 last week.
The province's active caseload has also declined to 23,016, down from 29,235 seven days ago.
With 45,406 tests processed over the past 24 hours, the province is reporting a positivity rate of 5.2 per cent today, down from 5.7 per cent last week.
Of the new cases confirmed today, 607 are in Toronto, 528 are in Peel Region, 224 are in Hamilton, and 181 are in York Region.
Another 27 virus-related deaths were confirmed on Thursday, bringing the average daily death toll to 25, down from 27 one week ago.
Hospitalizations and intensive care unit (ICU) admissions continue to decline. The province says there are now 1,320 COVID-19 patients receiving treatment at Ontario hospitals and 721 patients in the ICU.
That is down from 1,632 patients in hospital last week and 776 COVID-19 patients in the ICU.
The province says as of 8 p.m. last night, 7,576,624 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Ontario.
Ontario remains under a stay-at-home order until at least June 2 but details about the province's reopening plan are expected to be announced later today.
Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams previously said that he would like to see daily case counts “well below 1,000” and the number of COVID patients in the ICU at around 200 before reopening the economy in any significant way.
Sylvia Jones, the province's solicitor general, has hinted that the Ford government will likely scrap its regional approach and move to a “sector-by-sector” reopening strategy.
Premier Doug Ford will be holding a news conference at 3 p.m.
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.
