Ontario is reporting more than 200 new cases of COVID-19 for the first time in a week but the number of active cases continues to decline.

The Ministry of Health says that there were 206 new instances of the virus confirmed on Friday, which would be the highest number since 266 cases were reported on June 13.

There was also 31 deaths in people who had contracted the virus on Friday. That is the highest number since June 6 and represents a significant increase on the five-day rolling average of 13.6 deaths.

Active cases, however, continue to decline and now stand at just 2,269.

The five-day rolling average of new cases is 186. It stood at 226 at this point last week.

“While this is the first time the province is reporting a daily new case count above 200 in six days, we shouldn’t draw too many conclusions from one day’s data,” Health Minister Christine Elliott said in a message posted to Twitter on Saturday morning. “In fact, with 218 more resolved, we continue to see a persistent decline in active cases, with 12 fewer today and over 1,500 fewer active cases in the province as compared to early last week.”

More than 60 per cent of new cases in Toronto and Peel

About 61 per cent of the new cases confirmed over the last 24-hours occurred in either Toronto (71) or Peel Region (54), which have both been held back from entering the second stage of the province’s reopening plan due to a higher volume of infections.

Meanwhile, in 15 of Ontario’s 34 public health units there were no new cases reported.

Testing also continues to hover near all-time high levels.

On Friday, the province’s labs turned around 27,387 individual tests. That is the second highest total yet and only trails the 28,335 tests turned around on June 11.

It also point to a positive percentage of just 0.75 per cent. At one point last month, Ontario saw its positive percentage spike up to nearly seven per cent amid an increase in infections and a decline in testing.

Hospitalizations, meanwhile, were mostly unchanged on Friday with 333 people receiving treatment for COVID-19 (up two from one day prior).

Of those people, 80 of them were in Intensive Care Units.

That number previously peaked at 264 in early April and has been on a steady decline since then.

Other highlights from the data:

  • Four new outbreaks were reported at long-term care homes over the past 24 hours. There are now 79 active outbreaks in Ontario’s long-term care homes.
  • There were no new outbreaks reported in retirement homes or hospitals on Friday
  • The total number of deaths in people who have contracted COVID-19 now stands at 2,595, accounting for nearly eight per cent of all cases
  • Since the beginning of the pandemic 4,149 people have been hospitalized with COVID-19 (12.5 per cent of all cases)
  • People between the ages of 20 and 39 continue to account for the highest portion of new cases. On Friday there were 82 new cases in that demographic.
  • Ontario's labs have now completed 1,151,319 tests for COVID-19