Another 73 people have died from the disease caused by the novel coronavirus in the past 24-hour span, according to the latest numbers from the Ministry of Health.

Ontario also reported 2,063 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, up from 1,837 a day ago.

However, today’s numbers are over reported as Toronto Public Health logged 230 more cases from a previous date due to technical issues.

Provincial health officials recorded 2,093 new infections on Thursday and 1,670 on Wednesday.

The seven-day rolling average now stands at 1,968, down from 2,603 a week ago.

The latest fatalities mark a notable jump compared to the 58 deaths logged on Friday, 56 on Thursday and 49 on Wednesday.

Among the latest deaths, 24 are among long-term care home residents, according to the province's latest epidimiological summary. There have been 6,145 virus-related fatalities in Ontario since the pandemic began last March, 3,574 of those were long-term care home residents.

There are currently 241 long-term care homes and 142 retirement homes with an active outbreak of COVID-19 in Ontario.

Another 2,623 people have recovered from COVID-19 on Saturday and there are 19,724 active cases of the virus across the province.

In the past 24 hours, 59,594 tests were processed across the province, nearly 10,000 fewer tests compared to Friday.

There are 31,463 test specimens still under investigation.

The province’s positivity rate is 3.3 per cent when errors and duplicate tests are accounted for, according to the Ministry of Health. The positivity rate is unchanged from a day ago.

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

“Locally, there are 713 new cases in Toronto, 379 in Peel and 178 in York Region,” Health Minister Christine Elliott tweeted.

Excluding the additional cases reported by Toronto, the 483 new cases logged today mark a day-to-day decrease from the 595 infections reported on Friday.

Meanwhile, infections in Peel Region and York Region rose by 84 and eight from a day ago, respectively.

Elsewhere in the GTA, Halton Region logged 55 new infections and Durham Region recorded 89 new cases.

Those hospitalized due to COVID-19 infection continue to trend downwards across the province.

There are 1,273 people in Ontario hospitals due to COVID-19, down from 1,291 on Friday. Of those hospitalized, 353 are in intensive care units and 216 are breathing with the assistance of a ventilator.

So far, there are 57 confirmed cases of the highly contagious U.K. variant, also known as B.1.1.7, in Ontario. However, that number is expected to rise once full genomic sequencing is conducted on an additional 99 samples that came back positive for a “variant of concern” following an initial screening in the Simcoe Muskoka Health District.

To date, there have been 266,363 lab-confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus and nearly 240,500 recoveries across the province since the virus first emerged a year ago.

More than 67,700 vaccinations complete

As of 8 p.m. on Friday, 67,787 people have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in Ontario. Full immunization requires two doses of either the Pfizer BioNTech or Moderna vaccine administered a few weeks apart.

The province has administered more than 336,800 doses of the vaccines to Ontarians since mid-December.