Ontario reported more than 2,300 new COVID-19 cases for a second day in a row, as the number of patients battling the disease in intensive care units hit an all-time high.

Provincial health officials logged 2,333 new coronavirus infections and 15 more deaths on Wednesday.

The seven-day rolling average now stands at 2,316, compared to 1,676 seven days ago.

Ontario logged 2,336 new cases on Tuesday, 2,094 on Monday and 2,448 on Sunday.

Of the latest fatalities, four are among long-term care home residents. The province’s virus-related death toll is now 7,366.

Another 1,973 people recovered from the disease in the past 24 hours, resulting in 20,155 active cases across the province.

Ontario labs processed 52,532 tests yesterday, up from 36,071 the previous day.

More than 40,400 tests are still under investigation.

The rise in testing contributed to a drop in the province’s positivity rate to 4.8 per cent, compared to 6.2 per cent yesterday, according to the Ministry of Health.

Provincial health officials also reported another 101 lab-confirmed cases of highly-contagious variants of concern on Wednesday, including 98 of the B.1.1.7 variant, one of the B.1.351 variant and two of the P.1 variants.

Another 1,229 cases screened positive for a variant but are undergoing whole genome sequencing to identify their lineage, with a total 21,346 cases still awaiting testing and confirmation.

To date, there have been 2,060 lab-confirmed variants in Ontario.

In the Greater Toronto Area, Toronto reported 785 new COVID-19 cases today, up from 727 a day ago, while 433 cases were logged in Peel Region, 222 in York, 120 in Durham and 50 in Halton.

Hamilton, which transitioned into the grey-lockdown zone on Monday, recorded 153 new cases today, up from 123 on Tuesday.

Of Ontario’s 34 public health units, 12 reported 30 or more new COVID-19 cases.

Those hospitalized with the disease continue to rise as the province combats a third wave of the virus.

According to the Ministry of Health, a total of 1,111 people are in Ontario hospitals due to COVID-19 infection, compared to 1,090 a day ago.

But according to the latest data from public health units, there are currently at least 1,124 COVID-19 patients in hospitals.

Of those hospitalized, the ministry says 396 are in intensive care units and 252 are breathing with the help of a ventilator.

However, Critical Care Services Ontario says there are 421 patients battling the virus in ICUs across the province, with 32 admitted yesterday. There were 410 patients in Ontario ICUs on Tuesday, according to CCSO.

Critical care physician at Michael Garron hospital Dr. Michael Warner says the government needs to implement more public health measures now before the situation worsens.

“Even if we implement significant public health measures today, we could see ICU numbers hit 500, but if we don't, that's when things could really get bad. So politics has to be set aside, we need to protect the health and safety of people. Set economic interests aside for now and get some control over what's happening to all of us right now,” Warner told CP24 Tuesday morning.

To date, there have been more than 349,900 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 322,382 recoveries in Ontario since the first case was identified last January.

More than 315,800 Ontarians have been fully vaccinated against the disease since mid-December.

As of Tuesday evening, over 2.1 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered across the province, with 89,873 shots given yesterday alone.

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.