Ontario is reporting 649 new cases of COVID-19, a drop in new infections from a day earlier.
The province is also reporting one additional death, down from seven new deaths recorded on Saturday.
The majority of new cases continue to be from the Greater Toronto Area and Ottawa as the province is tackling a second wave of the novel coronavirus.
“Locally, there are 157 new cases in Peel, 140 in Toronto, 87 in York Region and 54 in Ottawa.” Health Minister Christine Elliott tweeted.
Elsewhere in the GTA, Halton Region logged 49 new infections and Durham Region recorded 29 new cases.
According to the Ministry of Health’s epidemiological summary, people between the ages of 20 and 39 account for the majority of new cases (279). Those between 40 and 59 years old represent 175 of the new cases, while 94 people are 19 years old and younger. Seventy-six of the new cases are among people between 60 and 79 years old, while 25 are 80 years old and over.
The province recorded 809 new cases of the disease on Saturday, a record-high 939 cases on Friday and 797 new infections on Thursday.
The seven-day rolling average of new cases now stands at 706.
Sunday’s results represent a positivity rate of 1.4 per cent, a drop from 1.8 per cent logged on Saturday.
An additional 705 people have recovered from the virus. There are now 5,697 active cases of the diseases across the province.
Since January, there have been 59,139 COVID-19 infections and more than 50,400 recoveries in the province. A total of 3,005 Ontarians have died from the virus.
As of Sunday, four long-term care homes in Ontario are facing an outbreak of the virus, along with two hospitals.
There are 217 patients hospitalized with the virus across Ontario but the Ministry of Health warns that this data may be inaccurate as a number of hospitals have not submitted their data in time, which happens often over the weekend.
Fifty-one patients are in intensive care and 32 of those patients are breathing with the help of a ventilator.
Province continues to work through testing backlog
Provincial labs processed more than 44,100 tests in the last 24 hours as it continues to work its way through a testing backlog.
More than 45,800 tests are still under investigation, down from 56,138 specimens that were waiting to be processed on Saturday.
Earlier this week the provincial government confirmed that some tests were being sent to the U.S. for processing.
CEO of the Lab Professionals Association of Ontario Michelle Hoad told CP24 on Sunday that shipping tests to other provinces and across the border is a helpful alternative.
“Tests going down to the U.S., tests going to our neighbouring provinces, these are all really good creative ideas for us to manage the backlog that we have right now,” Hoad said. “The province is doing the best it can with the limitations that we’re dealing with.”
The Ontario government will not report any numbers on Monday as it is a holiday for Thanksgiving. Monday’s numbers will be released on Tuesday.
