Ontario is reporting more than 3,400 new COVID-19 cases today and 69 more deaths, including 36 residents of long-term care homes in the province.

Provincial health officials are reporting 3,422 new infections today, up from the 3,056 logged on Saturday but down from the record 3,945 confirmed one week ago.

The province's rolling seven-day average of new cases is now 3,143, down from 3,548 last Sunday.

With more than 60,000 tests processed in the past 24 hours, the provincewide positivity rate is sitting at 5.2 per cent today, according to the latest data released by the Ministry of Health. That is down from 6.2 per cent at this point last week.

The number of active cases has also declined week-over week from 30,079 on Jan. 10 to 28,893 today.

Another 69 deaths were confirmed over the past 24 hours, including 36 residents of Ontario long-term care homes, bringing the total number of virus-related deaths in the province to 5,409. There are now 252 active outbreaks in long-term care homes in the province.

The Ford government continues to rollout the first phase of its COVID-19 vaccination program, inoculating health-care workers and residents of long-term care homes.

 "As of 8:00 p.m. yesterday, 200,097 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered," Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott tweeted on Sunday.

Last week, Ontario's COVID-19 vaccine task force said it plans to vaccinate all residents of long-term care facilities by Feb. 14.

Virus-related hospitalizations decline

The province says 1,570 people infected with novel coronavirus are currently in hospital, down from a record 1,701 on Tuesday but still up from 1,484 last Sunday. Intensive care unit (ICU) admissions declined only slightly from 397 on Saturday to 395 on Sunday, the province said. Seven days ago, there were 388 people with COVID-19 being treated in intensive care, according to provincial data, which typically lags behind information collected by Critical Care Services Ontario (CCSO).

Of the new cases reported today, 1,035 new cases are in Toronto, 585 are in Peel, 254 are in Windsor-Essex County, 246 are in York Region and 186 are in Niagara Region.

On Thursday, a new set of public health restrictions were implemented in an effort to slow community transmission of the novel coronavirus, including a stay-at-home order for all Ontario residents and a reduction in the size of outdoor gatherings from 10 people to five.

Non-essential retailers must also now operate with slightly reduced hours.

The provincial government has also delayed the return of in-person learning for all students in Toronto, Peel Region, York Region, Hamilton and Windsor-Essex County until Feb. 10.

Premier Doug Ford and Toronto Mayor John Tory spoke briefly to reporters on Sunday while touring a COVID-19 immunization centre at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, which is set to open on Monday.

Lessons learned at the site, which will operate as a pilot project for the next six weeks, will go on to create a "playbook" on how to operate vaccinations centres in non-medical settings this spring.

"I see today as something that should hopefully give people hope for a number of reasons. First and foremost, there is the hope that the vaccines are on their way, and I think you can see when a facility like this is opened, it truly gives us hope that the arrangements are being made, the details are being worked out," Tory said Sunday. 

"The second reason for hope, beyond the vaccine itself, is that we are actually doing something here that will be of benefit provincewide. The lessons that are learned here… Those lessons will be shared across the province."

The mayor said that all levels of goverment are "working well together" to curb cases and roll out the vaccine.

"If people can stay home and not associate with others outside their own home…and if we can continue to as governments work together to get these kinds of things done than the combination of people and their own sense of personal responsibility and their own I’m sure intense desire to have this all over with combined with the actions that are being undertaken by this great team of people… if that all happens, then I think spring will be a much brighter time for us all," Tory said.

New cases in the GTHA:

Toronto: 1,035

Peel Region: 585

York Region: 246

Durham Region: 97

Hamilton: 91

Halton Region: 59