Ontario is reporting a one-day spike in new COVID-19 cases but its rolling seven-day average continues to decline, suggesting that some of the measures taken to curb the spread of the virus might be starting to have an impact on transmission.

The Ministry of Health says that there were 4,505 cases of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus confirmed on Thursday, up from 3,682 one day prior.

It is the third highest number of new cases reported in any single 24-hour period throughout the entire pandemic but it is down from the record 4,812 cases reported last Friday.

The province’s rolling seven-day average, which provides a better snapshot of broader transmission patterns, now stands at 4,132.

That is down nearly four per cent from this time last week when it stood at 4,292.

Deaths, however, continue to creep up and on Friday the ministry reported another 34 fatalities in people who had contracted COVID-19. This comes after 40 deaths were reported on Thursday, which was a grim new record for this wave of the pandemic.

“We are in this very precarious transition time. Are we in a plateau? Some things are plateauing and some things are dipping down a bit,” Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams told reporters on Thursday. “Our reproductive number has reduced from 1.2 to 1.073. These are indications that we might be starting to bend the curve a bit. But it has not been enough time yet, we are just starting to see the impact of the stay-at-home order and we need to watch it closely.”

New single-day high in Peel

More than half of the new cases reported on Friday occurred in either Toronto (1,257 cases) or Peel Region (1,232), which set a new single-day high for cases.

Officials at Peel Public Health later said that some of the new cases are the result of a data backlog, though they acknowledged that transmission is extremely widespread in the community right now.

Elsewhere in the GTA, York Region reported 412 cases, Durham reported 224 and Halton reported 144.

“These are worrisome numbers. It speaks to the challenging situation we have been screaming about for months now and I would say a few things. One we need more pharmacies delivering vaccines, we need more primary care providers delivering vaccines, we need these promised mobile clinics et up and vaccinating essential workers in factories and we need our hot spots, which is the entire city, vaccinated,” Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown told CP24. “Vaccines, vaccines, vaccines. That is what we need to help deal with this havoc.

The one-day jump in cases comes as ICU admissions continue to rise at a troubling rate that could soon result in some doctors having to make difficult decisions about which patients to provide the highest level of care to.

The Ministry of Health says that there are now 818 patients in ICU beds, up from 808 one day prior.

The total number of COVID-19 patients in the ICU has now nearly doubled over the last three weeks and modelling has suggested that it will cross 1,000 by the end of the month, regardless of what restrictions might be imposed to further curb the spread of the virus.

In a bid to free up beds for COVID patients, Ontario has ordered all hospitals to suspend elective procedures for the time being and patients are now being regularly transported from the GTA to hospitals in less impacted regions, like Kingston and Peterborough.

Nonetheless, officials have warned that those measures won’t be enough to address the crisis and that the province might eventually have to invoke the triage protocol that it drafted earlier in the pandemic.

“When it comes to protecting lives, protecting our hospitals and our people we can't waver. But at this stage in the pandemic, over a year into this and going through this terrible third wave, I assure you that there are no easy choices left,” Premier Doug Ford warned during a press conference on Thursday.

The latest cases come on 56,206 tests, pointing to an 8.8 per cent positivity rate.

There are now 41,735 lab-confirmed active COVID-19 cases across Ontario.

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.