Ontario reported 1,707 new COVID-19 cases and seven new deaths on Tuesday, as positivity province-wide climbed above 5 per cent and Toronto hit a new single-day record high.

“Locally, there are 727 new cases in Toronto, 373 in Peel and 168 in York Region,” Health Minister Christine Elliott said on Twitter.

Toronto’s number for Tuesday is a new single-day high, nearly 100 more cases higher than what was recorded on Monday.

Ontario reported 1,746 new cases on Monday, 1,708 on Sunday and 1,822 on Saturday.

The rolling seven-day average now stands at 1,670 cases, up from 1,570 on Monday.

Provincial labs processed 34,640 specimens in the past 24 hours, down nearly 5,000 from Monday and almost 20,000 from Sunday.

Another 34,000 test specimens remain under investigation.

As a result, the per cent positivity rate after accounting for errors and duplicate tests was 5.1 per cent across the province.

A total of 3,663 people have died of novel coronavirus infection since early March, with 118,000 cases confirmed by lab test since Jan. 25 and 100,012 recoveries.

Six of the seven deaths reported on Tuesday were of residents of long-term care homes.

There are now 14,524 active cases of COVID-19 across Ontario, up from 12,917 one week ago.

Meanwhile, hospitalizations continue to surge, with admissions to intensive care beds approaching 200.

There are 645 people in hospital receiving treatment for COVID-19 symptoms across the province, up from 631 on Monday.

Of those, 185 are in intensive care and 112 of those are breathing with the help of a ventilator.

Dr. Michael Warner of Michael Garron Hospital in East York said the ICU bed numbers are even higher than what the province stated on Tuesday morning.

"Unfortunately we added 26 new patients with COVID to ICUs across the province, we’re up to 193."

Warner said that according to the Critical Care Services of Ontario daily census, close to 40 per cent of ICU beds in some Toronto hospitals are filled with COVID-19 patients.

He said that at the current trajectory, it could take as long as six more weeks for daily infection numbers to really turn the corner and start to decline considerably.

Elsewhere in the GTA, Durham Region reported 72 new cases, Halton Region reported 47 new cases and Hamilton reported 58 new cases.