Ontario is reporting more than 1,700 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday with the lowest number of tests processed in over two months.

Provincial health officials logged 1,740 new COVID-19 cases and 63 more deaths today.

Of the latest deaths, 35 are among long-term care home residents.

There are currently 253 long-term care homes and 153 retirement homes with an active outbreak of the virus across Ontario.

Since the pandemic began last March, 5,909 people have died from the virus in Ontario.

According to the province’s epidemiological summary, 2,261 more people have recovered from the virus across Ontario. There are currently 23,036 active cases of COVID-19, compared to more than 27,600 a week ago.

On Monday, the province recorded 1,958 new cases, the first time daily case counts dipped below 2,000 in a week.

Provincial health officials logged 2,417 new infections on Sunday and 2,359 on Saturday.

The seven-day rolling average now stands at 2,346, compared to 2,893 a week ago.

Most of the new cases continue to be throughout the Greater Toronto Area.

"Locally, there are 677 new cases in Toronto, 320 in Peel and 144 in York Region," Health Minister Christine Elliott tweeted.

All three regions saw a day-over-day decrease in new cases today.

Elsewhere in the GTA, Halton Region logged 49 new cases of the virus, down from 54 a day ago, and Durham Region recorded 51 new infections, down nine from Monday.

In the past 24 hours, the province processed 30,717 lab-confirmed tests, down from nearly 36,000 tests a day ago.

Today marks the lowest number of tests conducted in a 24-hour span since Nov. 24, 2020 when 27,053 tests were processed.

Provincial health officials said there are currently 36,405 tests under investigation.

Due to a drop in testing, the province’s positivity rate is now 5.9 per cent, compared to 5.5 per cent on Monday, according to the Ministry of Health.

COVID-19 hospitalizations saw a notable jump compared to a day ago.

As of Tuesday morning, there were 1,466 people in hospitals across the province due to the virus, up from 1,398 on Monday, according to the Ministry of Health.

However, according to public health units across the province, there are at least 1,524 people hospitalized due to COVID-19 infection.

Of those hospitalized, the government said 383 are in intensive care units (ICU), down 14 from a day ago, and 298 are breathing with the help of a ventilator.

Critical Care Services Ontario, however, reported there were 415 people with COVID-19 in ICUs across the province on Monday.

Since the first case of COVID-19 emerged in the province a year ago yesterday, there have been 258,700 lab-confirmed cases of the virus across Ontario. More than 229,700 people have recovered from the virus.

The latest numbers come as Ontario copes with new variants of the virus surfacing across the province.

As of Tuesday morning, there were 43 cases of the highly contagious UK-discovered B.1.1.7 variant in Ontario.

Along with the South African variant, the new strains are believed to be about 50 per cent more transmissible than other variants of the virus.

More than 83,000 COVID-19 vaccinations complete

As of 8 p.m. on Monday, 83,285 people in Ontario have been fully inoculated with COVID-19 vaccines.

More than 295,800 doses of both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have been administered across the province since mid-December.

Two doses of the same COVID-19 vaccine are required at least three weeks apart for full immunization.