Ontario is reporting more than 600 new COVID-19 cases and six more deaths on Saturday as the seven-day rolling average continues to climb.

Provincial health officials logged 661 new infections today, up from 598 yesterday and from 508 a week ago.

Today marks the highest case count since Oct. 2 when 704 new infections were recorded.

Earlier this week the province logged 441 new cases on Tuesday, 454 on Wednesday and 642 on Thursday.

The seven-day rolling average continued to rise hitting 559 today, a significant uptick from 426 this time last week.

Among the latest cases, 315 of the individuals are unvaccinated, 22 are partially vaccinated, 273 are fully vaccinated and 51 have an unknown vaccination status.

So far, 88 per cent of eligible Ontarians have received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 85 per cent have received two doses and are considered fully vaccinated.

Children under 12 years old are not yet eligible for a vaccine.

Another 469 people recovered from the virus in the past 24 hours, resulting in 4,586 active cases across the province.

All of the six reported deaths occurred in the last month, according to the Ministry of Health.

The province’s virus-related death toll stands at 9,927.

Ontario labs processed more than 26,400 tests yesterday, producing a positivity rate of 2.4 per cent, up from 1.9 per cent this time last week.

In the Greater Toronto Area, Toronto logged 86 new cases, while 54 were reported in York Region, 35 in Durham, 27 in Peel Region and 15 in Halton.

Meanwhile, 50 new cases were reported in Simcoe Muskoka, 49 in Ottawa, 43 in Windsor-Essex and 35 in Sudbury.

There are currently 263 people with the virus in hospitals across the province and 131 are in intensive care units, the ministry says.

Health Minister Christine Elliott says 118 ICU patients are not fully vaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status and 13 are fully vaccinated.

To date, there have been over 606,500 lab-confirmed coronavirus cases and 591,994 recoveries since Jan. 2020.

Yesterday, the province’s science table released new modelling data on the pandemic and said ICU occupancy is set to hit 200 in the New Year in a “more likely” scenario.

The science table said COVID-19 cases are rising in most of Ontario’s public health units and a "deliberate pause on reopening" for the time being is recommended.

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.