Ontario is reporting fewer than 300 new COVID-19 cases for the fifth day in a row and two more deaths.

Provincial health officials logged 256 new coronavirus infections, down from 296 on Thursday and 345 last Friday.

The seven-day rolling average now stands at 292, a notable decline from 411 a week ago.

The province reported 255 new cases on Wednesday, 296 on Tuesday and 270 on Monday.

The province’s virus-related death toll is now 9,101.

Another 293 people recovered from the virus in Ontario, resulting in 2,899 active cases.

Ontario labs processed more than 26,500 tests in the past 24 hours, down from 29,514 the previous day.

The drop in testing contributed to a slight rise in the positivity rate to 1.3 per cent, according to the Ministry of Health.

The province reported 139 more lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 variants of concern today, with the majority being the Alpha variant, which was first discovered in the United Kingdom.

Ontario’s science table has, however, estimated that 63 per cent of new cases now involve the Delta variant first detected in India. But because there is no test to screen for that variant and the province is instead relying on full genomic sequencing, there is often a delay in confirming cases.

In the Greater Toronto Area, Toronto reported 36 new cases, while 38 were logged in Peel Region, six in York Region, three in Halton and seven in Durham.

The region of Waterloo logged 39 new infections today, the highest in the province but a drop from the 95 cases logged the previous day.

There are currently 275 people receiving treatment for the virus in Ontario hospitals.

However, the Ministry of Health says there are more patients in intensive care units (284) and that 202 are breathing with the help of a ventilator.

To date, there have been more than 543,500 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 531,571 recoveries since Jan. 2020.

More than 3.7 million people have been fully vaccinated in Ontario by receiving two doses of approved COVID-19 vaccines.

Over 13.5 million doses have been administered across the province since mid-December, with 246,393 shots into arms 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.