Ontario reported the lowest number of new daily COVID-19 cases since late March on Tuesday, with 17 additional deaths, as hospitalizations continued a slow creep downward.

The province reported 1,616 cases on Tuesday, more than 500 fewer than each day of the previous weekend.

Ontario reported 2,170 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday and 2,199 on Sunday.

The seven-day rolling average of new cases now stands at 2,287, down from 2,352 on Monday.

It’s lowest daily count since March 24, when the province reported 1,571 new cases.

A province-wide state of emergency was declared about two weeks after that day, along with a stay-at-home order that remains in place today and will not end until June 2.

Of the 17 deaths reported today, one involved a resident of the long-term care system.

Provincial labs processed 22,915 tests in the previous 24 hours, with another 20,325 under investigation, generating a positivity rate of at least 7.6 per cent.

There are now 24,966 known active cases throughout Ontario, down from 31,151 one week ago.

At least 8,506 Ontarians have died from COVID-19 since March 2020. A total of 25,000 people are believed to have died from COVID-19 across Canada since the pandemic began.

Across the GTA, Toronto reported 472 cases, Peel reported 360, York Region reported 116 new cases, Durham Region reported 102 new cases, Halton reported 60 new cases and Hamilton reported 114.

The lower case numbers will eventually have a positive effect on hospitals across the province, but the decline in occupancy has been slow to date.

There were 1,484 people receiving treatment for COVID-19 symptoms across Ontario on Tuesday, down from 1,546 at the end of last week.

Of those, 764 were in intensive care, down from 802 one week ago.

Five-hundred and fifty-nine people were breathing with the help of a ventilator.

The Ministry of Health said 109,032 COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered on Monday up until 8 p.m.

A total of 7.286 million doses of vaccine have now been administered and 442,102 people have received a full two-dose inoculation.

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.