Ontario is reporting close to 500 new COVID-19 cases today as the average daily case count continues to rise in the province.

Officials are reporting 480 new infections today, up from 422 last Monday and 326 two weeks ago. Ontario reported 636 new cases on Sunday, the highest single-day total in nearly a month.

The seven-day rolling average of new infections has now climbed to 476 today, up from 362 one week ago.

Of the new cases confirmed today, 244 are in those who are unvaccinated, 191 are in fully immunized individuals, 32 have an unknown vaccination status, and 13 are partially vaccinated.

For the second consecutive day, Ontario’s test positivity rate has reached or surpassed two per cent. With 22,980 tests processed over the past 24 hours, officials are reporting a provincewide positivity rate of 2.2 per cent, up from 1.8 per cent last week.

Known, active infections in Ontario exceeded 4,000 today, up from 3,159 last Monday.

According to Ontario’s Science Advisory Table, as of Nov. 4, Ontario's effective reproduction number was around 1.26, meaning every 100 new cases would go on to generate 126 secondary infections.

The highest number of new cases today were reported in Toronto (53), Waterloo Region (49), York Region (39), Peel Region (39), and Ottawa (36).

Two more virus-related deaths were confirmed today, bringing Ontario’s COVID-19 death toll since March 2020 to 9,900.

The number of COVID-19 patients in Ontario intensive care units (ICU) is now 127, down from 133 last week. It should be noted that officials have said it can take two to three weeks before an uptick in community transmission is reflected in hospitalization numbers.

The province does not release data on hospitalizations based on vaccination status early in the week due to reporting issues.

Ontario's minister of health confirmed today that 85 per cent of eligible Ontarians are now fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

Starting today, fully vaccinated Canadians are permitted to cross the border into the United States for non-essential travel for the first time in nearly two years.

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.