Ontario is reporting more than 3,300 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday as a stay-at-home order came into effect across the province to reduce transmission of the virus.
Public health officials reported 3,326 new infections and 62 additional deaths today.
Of the latest fatalities, 29 were among long-term care home residents, down from 36 deaths in this setting on Wednesday.
According to the province’s epidemiological summary, there are currently 259 long-term care homes with an active outbreak of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
The province logged 2,961 new cases on Wednesday, 2,903 on Tuesday and 3,338 on Monday.
A single-day record of 3,945 cases were reported on Sunday.
The seven-day rolling average now stands at 3,395, up from 3,140 a week ago. Today's average does not include the roughly 450 additional cases that were reported by Toronto Public Health on Jan. 8 due to a data backlog.
On Thursday, the province reported that 3,593 more people recovered from the virus bringing the number of active cases to 29,307.
The number of active cases in the province has declined each day since Monday, falling by a total of 1,300 cases.
Provincial health officials said 71,169 tests were processed in the last 24 hours, a jump of more than 20,000 tests from a day ago.
The testing positivity rate is now 5.1 per cent, compared to six per cent on Wednesday, according to the government.
Most of the cases continue to be from hot spots in the Greater Toronto Area.
"Locally, there are 968 new cases in Toronto, 572 in Peel, 357 in York Region and 268 in Windsor-Essex County," Health Minister Christine Elliott tweeted.
All of those regions mentioned by Elliott saw a day-to-day increase in new cases on Thursday.
Elsewhere in the GTA, Halton Region logged 85 new infections, compared to 88 a day ago, while Durham Region recorded 93 new cases, down from 119 on Wednesday.
As of Thursday, 1,657 patients were hospitalized with the virus, down from 1,674 on Wednesday, according to the Ministry of Health. Of those hospitalized, 388 are in intensive care and 280 are breathing with the help of a ventilator.
To date, there have been more than 228,300 cases of COVID-19 in Ontario since the virus first emerged almost a year ago.
More than 193,800 people have recovered from the virus and the death toll stands at 5,189.
The latest numbers come as a stay-at-home order came into effect across Ontario today.
The order requires residents to stay home except for essential outings, including accessing health care, shopping for groceries and exercising.
On Wednesday night, the government released a list of exceptions to the stay-at-home order.
More than 13,200 COVID-19 vaccinations completed
As of 10:30 a.m., the province has administered more than 159,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
To date, a total of 13,293 people have been fully vaccinated, as both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines require two doses for immunization.
The government had administered more than 14,200 doses of the vaccine to Ontarians in the past 24 hours.
On Wednesday, the province’s COVID-19 vaccine task force announced that it plans to inoculate all long-term care home residents in the province with one dose of the vaccine by Feb. 15.
