Ontario is reporting a slight increase in new COVID-19 cases in the province with 326 new infections confirmed today.

The province’s daily epidemiological summary released Sunday, which provides data from one day earlier, confirms that while only three more positive tests were reported from one day prior, there has been a slight uptick in the positivity rate.

The province says 17,014 tests were conducted on Saturday, down from the more than 20,000 conducted one day earlier.

Approximately 1.9 per cent of all tests conducted on Saturday were positive for the virus while the positivity rate on Friday was just 1.5 per cent.

The recent numbers nonetheless suggest that case growth in Ontario appears to be on the decline.

Last week, the province saw five days in a row where more than 400 new cases were confirmed but the number of new cases has been steadily declining since.

The spike in cases last week has been attributed to the Mother’s Day weekend, where officials have suggested that some in the province were gathering when they shouldn’t have been.

The premier stated that the province would be forced to roll things back if the number of new cases continued to climb in the province.

19 more deaths reported

Ontario is also reporting 19 more virus-related deaths, up by just two from the number of deaths reported on Friday.

All but 99 deaths in the province have involved people ages 60 and over and only eight people between the ages of 20 and 39 have died after becoming infected with COVID-19. There are no virus-related deaths in people under 19. 

The number of hospitalizations has also been steadily declining in recent days.

The number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 dropped to 781 on Saturday, down from the 801 who were in hospital one day prior. The province says 118 people were in intensive care on Saturday, down from the 121 patients in the ICU on Friday.

The number of people on ventilators rose slightly from 84 on Friday to 90 on Saturday.

Other highlights from the data:

  • 306 outbreaks have now been reported in Ontario’s 626 long-term care homes, an increase of one from the previous day
  •  Nearly 79 per cent of the 27,859 cases in Ontario are now considered resolved
  • Greater Toronto Area public health units now account for about 66 per cent of all cases
  • There are 4,705 confirmed cases among healthcare workers, accounting for 17 per cent of all known cases
  • The number of people who have been hospitalized with COVID-19 now stands at 3,473 (12.5 per cent of all cases)