Ontario is reporting a dip in the number of new COVID-19 infections today after a slight uptick in daily case counts over the past couple of days.

Provincial health officials logged 744 new COVID-19 cases today, down from 914 on Friday and 870 on Thursday.

The rolling seven-day average of new infections continues to decline in Ontario, dropping to 844 today. That is down from 889 yesterday and 1,248 last Saturday.

Another 24 virus-related deaths were confirmed in the province today, bringing Ontario's COVID-19 death toll to 8,844.

With 27,819 tests processed over the past 24 hours, officials are reporting a provincewide positivity rate of 3.1 per cent, down from 3.6 per cent last week.

According to the Ministry of Health, there are currently 625 COVID-19 patients receiving treatment in hospital with 516 in intensive care units (ICU).

At this point last week, the province said there were 934 COVID-19 patients in hospital and 626 in the ICU.

Of the new cases reported today, 181 are in Toronto, 123 are in Peel Region, 61 are in Hamilton, 51 are in the Region of Waterloo, 48 are in York Region and 48 are in the Porcupine Health Unit region.

Ontario's active caseload is now 8,937, down from 14,423 last week.

According to the province, 9,834,182 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Ontario to date.

On Friday, a group of experts, politicians, and local public health officials urged the Ontario government to send more vaccine doses to hot spots.

The group suggested that this step is needed to prevent a fourth wave as the Delta variant, which is believed to be 50 per cent more transmissible, continues to circulate widely in the province.

For a two-week period last month, hot spots were provided a larger allocation of vaccine to get residents and workers in areas with the highest rates of transmission their first shot as quickly as possible. The province has yet to adopt a similar strategy for second doses and continues to distribute vaccines to regions on a per capita basis.

"B.1.1.7, we could not vaccinate our way out of that, but the Delta variant we can if we're strategic and if we listen to the science and work on the timeline of science, as opposed to the timeline of politics," said Dr. Michael Warner, the director of critical care at Michael Garron Hospital.

"If we want to move forward quickly and get back on our feet with respect to the economy, we need to go to where the COVID is."

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.