Ontario reported 345 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday and one new death, the lowest daily increase in deaths found since mid-Oct. 2020.

The seven-day rolling average of new cases now stands at 411, down from 443 yesterday and 568 one week ago.

The death reported Friday is the lowest daily increase in fatalities reported by the province since Oct. 14, 2020, when no deaths were observed.

Ontario reported 370 new cases on Thursday and 384 on Wednesday.

Across the GTA, Toronto reported 50 new cases, Peel Region reported 50 new cases, Waterloo Region reported 85 new cases and York Region reported 22 new cases.

Durham Region reported 12 new cases, Halton Region reported seven new cases and Hamilton reported 29 cases.

Provincial labs processed 26,643 specimens in the past 24 hours, generating a positivity rate of at least 1.4 per cent.

The Ministry of Health said there were 378 people in hospital due to COVID-19, with 352 in intensive care.

Of those, 221 were breathing with the help of a ventilator.

There have now been 8,994 deaths attributed to novel coronavirus infection in Ontario since March 2020, with 528,421 recoveries and 4,110 known active cases.

The province’s known active caseload was last that low on Sept. 26, 2020.

Public Health Ontario said that 71 new examples of the Delta B.1.617 coronavirus variant were confirmed through whole genomic sequencing, bringing the total number found to 657.

Health Minister Christine Elliott said Friday that 20 per cent of Ontario adults had received a second dose of an approved COVID-19 vaccine, a key milestone for moving to Step Two of the reopening plan.

More than 210,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine were administered on Thursday, bringing the total number of shots administered to 12.15 million.

More than 2.5 million people have received two doses of an approved COVID-19 vaccine.

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.