Ontario reported 56 new deaths due to COVID-19 on Sunday, as the burden on the province’s intensive care units held relatively stable over the past 24 hours.

The number of people hospitalized in intensive care due to COVID-19 across the province stayed relatively constant, rising from 600 on Saturday to 604 today.

Overall hospital admissions data is incomplete on weekends. Three hundred and seventy-three ICU patients are breathing with the help of a ventilator, down three from Saturday.

There have been 299 deaths due to COVID-19 reported across Ontario in the past seven days. Fifty-seven deaths were detected Sunday but one earlier death was removed from the total.

Seven of Sunday’s reported deaths involved residents of the long-term care system.

Limits on access to testing make projections difficult, but the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table believes new cases per million inhabitants have fallen by more than 50 per cent since hitting a peak of 1,000 per million in early January.

They also cite wastewater surveillance data from 33 of Ontario 34 public health units, suggesting a smaller decline in rates of infection since early January.

Indoor dining, fitness centre activity and cinemas are set to reopen across Ontario in eight days.

Provincial labs processed 32,247 specimens in the previous period, generating a positivity rate of 18.2 per cent.

Of reported cases confirmed through PCR testing, the Ministry of Health said 835 involved unvaccinated people, 223 involved partially vaccinated people, 4,175 involved fully vaccinated people and 600 involved people with unknown vaccination status.

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.