For the second time this week, Ontario's daily COVID-19 case count hit its lowest level in more than seven months.

Provincial health officials logged 663 new cases of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus today, the lowest single-day tally in Ontario since Oct. 18.

Today's total is down from the 744 new cases confirmed on Saturday and the 1,033 infections reported last Sunday.

The rolling seven-day average of new cases is now 791, down from 1,154 last week and 1,878 two weeks ago.

With 22,645 tests processed over the past 24 hours, the province is reporting a positivity rate of 2.8 per cent. That is down from 4.2 per cent last Sunday.

Ontario's active COVID-19 caseload is now 8,368, down from 13,371 last week.

Another 10 virus-related deaths were confirmed today, bringing Ontario's COVID-19 death toll to 8,854.

The Ministry of Health says current data provided to the province indicates that there are 545 COVID-19 patients in Ontario hospitals with 510 in intensive care units. It should be noted that hospital admission numbers are often lower on the weekends due to a lack of reporting from some hospitals.

Of the new infections confirmed today, 115 are in Toronto, 112 are in Peel Region, 59 are in Niagara Region, 47 are in York Region and 40 are in Ottawa.

Declining case counts and hospitalizations in recent weeks has prompted to the province to take a look at reopening patios and shuttered businesses a little earlier than expected.

The Ford government initially set a target date of June 14 to enter Stage 1 of the reopening plan, which would see patio dining resume and non-essential retail stores reopen with reduced capacity.

But last week, Premier Doug Ford indicated that they could potentially accelerate that timeline if trends continue to move in the right direction.

“I know that they (provincial officials) are looking at these numbers, day after day, every single day because I don't think they want to wait a minute longer,” Mayor John Tory told CP24 on Sunday.

“I've said before and I think it's true, there are no two people in Ontario, or I'll say Toronto, more anxious to see some of these restrictions lifted… than Premier Ford and myself but in the end it's their provincial decision.”

Tory said he expects there will be “very active discussion” on the topic this week.

“We are approaching the date on which it was supposed to happen and if it's going to happen early, it would have to be sometime very soon,” Tory said.

Ontario has administered 9,992,575 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine to date, the province's health minister says.

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.