Ontario's daily COVID-19 case count climbed up above 200 today but other key metrics, including hospitalizations and deaths, continue to trend downward.
Provincial health officials logged 210 new cases of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus today, up from 194 on Wednesday but down from 284 one week ago.
The rolling seven-day average of new infections has also dropped to 206 today, down from 267 last Thursday.
With 25,859 tests processed over the past 24 hours, officials are reporting a provincewide positivity rate of 0.8 per cent, the lowest one logged since Sept. 6.
Four more virus-related deaths were confirmed today, bringing Ontario's average daily death toll down to 6, a steep drop from 14 just one week ago.
Data provided by local public health units and individual hospitals indicates that there are about 246 people infected with the virus who are receiving treatment in hospital.
The number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care units (ICU) is also steadily declining in Ontario. The Ministry of Health says there are now 215 COVID-19 patients in the ICU, down from 254 last week.
The number of active, lab-confirmed cases of COVD-19 in the province dipped from 2,265 last Wednesday to 1,816 today.
Of the new cases confirmed today, 52 are in the Region of Waterloo, 23 are in Peel Region, 19 are in Hamilton, 18 are in Toronto and 17 are in Grey Bruce.
Ontario hit a new single-day vaccination record on Wednesday, administering 268,884 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine in a 24-hour period.
A total of 16,395,063 doses have been administered in the province to date and on Thursday, officials confirmed that more than 50 per cent of Ontarians have now been fully immunized with two shots.
The uptick in vaccination rates and decline in cases has prompted calls to reopen more parts of the economy ahead of schedule but on Wednesday, the head of Ontario's Science Advisory Table said with the more transmissible Delta variant now dominant in Ontario, rushing the province's reopening would be a mistake.
"What we now need is roughly 75 per cent of the eligible population fully vaccinated and we need to see how Step 2 of the reopening works out. We only see that roughly after two and a half weeks after we started with Step 2," Dr. Peter Juni told CP24 on Wednesday night.
"We need to wait now, be patient and not get ahead of ourselves. It's an absolute no-go to rush this."
Provincial labs detected another 63 examples of the Delta variant on Thursday, and the science table believes Delta could account for as much as 82 per cent of all new cases in the province.
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.
