Ontario has confirmed 78 new cases of COVID 19, the biggest single-day jump so far and a 30 per cent increase from the previous record.

The increase comes after the province confirmed 48 new cases of the virus on Sunday, 59 new cases on Saturday and a then record 60 new cases on Friday.

The total number of cases in the province now stands at 503, including eight recoveries and six deaths.

The latest data also includes a man in his 80s who died at a hospital in Lindsay on Sunday afternoon and whose death was previously confirmed by local health officials.

15 Toronto cases

Of the new cases with a location listed, 15 are in Toronto, eight are in York Region, six are in Peel Region, three are in Durham Region, three are in Hamilton and two are in Halton Region.

While the majority of cases up to this point have involved patients who were instructed to self-isolate at home, there also appears to be a rise in hospitalizations resulting from the virus.

Of the 48 new cases that list a status, six involve people who have been hospitalized. That total includes a woman in her 30s who is hospitalized in Toronto. Speaking with reporters at Queen's Park on Monday afternoon, Health Minister Christine Elliott also confirmed that there are 23 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in the province currently, including the six new cases.

The means of transmission is only listed for about a third of the new cases. Of those cases, 12 are believed to be travel-related and 16 are thought to be the result of someone contracting the virus from a “close contact.”

There are also five cases involving people whose status is listed as “institution,” including three people in their 90s in Toronto. The Ministry of Health tells CP24 that the designation “primarily refers to long-term care homes and nursing homes, but can also be used to describe group homes, mental health facilities and correctional facilities.”

Encouragingly, the rise in number of cases where test results are still pending seems to have leveled off in this latest batch of data after increasing significantly in recent days. There are a total of 8,417 cases listed as still under investigation, which is only up slightly from the 8,361 cases under investigation on Sunday.

So far, 19,586 Ontarians have tested negative for COVID-19.

Ontario's Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Barbara Yaffe confirmed Monday that 26 health care workers have tested positive for the respiratory illness.

"The fact that they are health care workers makes them a priority group for testing," Yaffe told reporters on Monday afternoon. "We do not know specifically if they if they acquired the infection in the community, with travel or at work."