Ontario reported 1,418 new COVID-19 cases on Friday and 8 new deaths, as the province’s total case count since the pandemic crossed 100,000.

“Locally, there are 400 new cases in Peel, 393 in Toronto and 168 in York Region,” Health Minister Christine Elliott wrote on Twitter.

Ontario reported 1,210 cases on Thursday, 1,417 on Wednesday and 1,575 one week ago.

The seven-day moving average of case growth rose to 1,373, from 1,369 yesterday.

There are now 12,623 active cases of novel coronavirus infection in Ontario, down five cases from yesterday.

Nearly 85,000 people have recovered from infection and 3,451 people have died. Public Health Ontario says 100,790 people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 by laboratory test since the virus reached the province in late January.

A total of 139 people have died of COVID-19 in the past week.

Four of the eight deaths reported on Friday involved residents of the long-term care system.

Provincial labs processed more than 48,000 test specimens in the past 24 hours, up from 41,838 on Thursday.

Friday’s results generated a positivity rate of 3.6 per cent when duplicate tests and errors are accounted for.

A further 46,609 specimens remain under investigation.

Infectious diseases specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch said the fact that parts of Ontario are seeing hospitals near capacity because of COVID-19 means more must be done to slow the spread of the virus.

“In Edmonton, in Peel, in parts of Quebec, Scarborough, the hospitals are getting really, really full, the ICUs are getting full. And in many places, they’re starting to cancel scheduled surgeries, they’re not elective, you need to have them.”

“You cannot overwhelm your healthcare system – that has tremendous detrimental effects.”

Epidemiologist Dr. Abdu Sharkawy said it has come to a point where the province should consider imposing new restrictions on all of the GTA, given the case growth throughout.

"Let's not kid ourselves. This issue is one that is impacting the entirety of the GTA and the surrounding area in a fairly dire way and to suggest that we should be waiting another couple of weeks to have things settle down is in my view not a safe strategy."

Hospitalizations in Ontario fell slightly, from 526 across the province to 518, according to Public Health Ontario.

The number of people in ICUs fell by 4 to 142, but the number of people breathing with the help of a ventilator rose by 4 to 92.

Elsewhere in the GTA, Halton Region reported 36 new cases, Hamilton also reported 36 new cases and Durham Region reported 46 new cases.