Ontario is reporting 1,822 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday as processed tests surpassed the province’s daily target for a second day in a row.

Provincial health officials say 29 more people died from the virus, 11 of which were long-term care home residents.

Currently, there are 105 long-term care homes in Ontario with an outbreak of the virus.

Most cases continue to be from the Greater Toronto Area, where Toronto and Peel Region entered a 28-day lockdown on Monday to curb the spread of the virus.

"Locally, there are 566 new cases in Toronto, 516 in Peel, 145 in York Region, 105 in Waterloo and 102 in Hamilton," Health Minister Christine Elliott tweeted on Saturday.

Elsewhere in the GTA, Halton Region recorded 68 new cases of the virus, a notable drop from 130 a day ago, and Durham Region logged 48 new infections, down from 65 on Friday.

Meanwhile, Ottawa logged 46 new cases, down from 55 the previous day.

Only five of Ontario’s 34 public health units reported zero new cases of the novel coronavirus within the past 24 hours.

The increased number of new cases has risen the seven-day rolling average to 1,522, up from 1,489 a day ago.

The province logged a record 1,855 new infections on Friday, the highest number of new cases since the pandemic began in March. On Thursday, Ontario recorded 1,478 cases and 1,373 infections on Wednesday.

According to the province’s latest epidemiological summary, 55,086 tests were processed in the last 24 hours, down from a record 58,037 on Friday, but still well above the province’s daily goal of 50,000 tests.

More than 56,200 tests are under investigation.

The increased rate of testing has lowered the province’s positivity rate to at least 3.4 per cent, down from 3.7 the previous day.

Health officials say 1,510 more people have recovered from the virus, bringing the total number of active cases to 13,538.

To date, there have been 113,038 cases of the virus in Ontario since January and 95,876 recoveries. A total of 3,624 people in Ontario have died from the novel coronavirus.

COVID-19 hospitalizations continue to increase across the province. There are currently 595 people hospitalized with the virus in Ontario, up from 541 on Friday. Of those patients, 155 are in an intensive care unit and 99 are breathing with the help of a ventilator.

On Friday, Premier Doug Ford asked the federal government to provide a clear timeline of when Ontario will receive the first doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Ford made the remarks during his daily briefing, alongside Health Minister Christine Elliott and retired Gen. Rick Hillier, the new head of the province’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution task force.

The premier said it is “impossible” to plan distribution of the vaccine, including staffing and storage of doses, without a timeline and “the clock is ticking.”

“That's why, as we continue planning, we need certainty from the federal government. We need to know which kind of vaccines we'll be getting, because each vaccine will come with unique requirements and potential challenges. And we also need to know how many vaccines we will receive each week. We need a clear line of sight into the timelines of the shipments,” Ford said on Friday.

During an announcement from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday, he refused to provide a clear timeline for when Canadians will have access to a vaccine, but said that he hopes to have more than half of Canadians vaccinated by September 2021.

COVID-19 vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna have yet to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but they could receive approval as early as two weeks from now.