Ontario reported more than 3,800 new coronavirus cases and 41 more deaths on Thursday, as one epidemiologist says the province is seeing “early signs of improvement” amid the third wave of the pandemic.

Provincial health officials logged 3,871 new COVID-19 cases today, up from 3,480 infections recorded on Wednesday.

The province reported 3,265 new cases on Tuesday, 3,510 on Monday and 3,947 on Sunday.

Ontario’s seven-day rolling average now stands at 3,810, down from 4,176 a week ago.

With the latest fatalities, the province’s virus-related death toll surpassed 8,000 reaching 8,029 on Thursday.

Among the latest deaths, two people were between 20 and 39 years old, four were between 40 and 59, 18 were between 60 and 79 and 17 were 80 years old and over.

Another 4,245 people recovered from the virus, resulting in 38,438 active cases across the province.

The province also logged 2,708 lab-confirmed cases of variants of concern, including 96 of the P.1 variant, which was first identified in Brazil- marking the highest single-day jump since the variant was first recorded in Ontario in February.

In the Greater Toronto Area, Toronto reported 1,172 new cases on Thursday, up from 961 a day ago, while 901 cases were logged in Peel Region, 392 in York, 292 in Durham and 129 in Halton.

Ontario labs processed over 56,900 tests in the past 24 hours, up from 50,194 tests the previous day.

The province’s positivity rate now stands at 7.6 per cent, up from 7.2 per cent on Wednesday, according to the Ministry of Health.

A total of 2,248 people were hospitalized across the province due to the virus in the past 24 hours, down from 2,281 a day ago.

However, according to the latest data from hospitals and public health units there are at least 2,597 people in Ontario hospitals.

Of those hospitalized, the Ministry of Health says 884 are in intensive care units and 620 are breathing with the assistance of a ventilator.

Although today’s numbers are up compared from a day ago, infectious diseases specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch says the numbers are heading in the right direction.

“There are early signs of improvement. It's fantastic to see. We're seeing those early signs of improvement in much of the province. That's just a reflection of the public health measures starting to take effect with the lag time that we expect,” Bogoch said during Mississauga’s COVID-19 press conference Thursday morning prior to the release of today’s COVID-19 data.

Bogoch, however, cautioned that there is still a long road to recovery.

“We are not even close to being out of the woods yet. You don't have to look too far to see how stretched our hospital is. And while there certainly are small arrows pointing in the right direction. We have a long, long way to go,” he said.

On Apr. 8, Ontario implemented a provincewide stay-at-home order to curb rising infections and hospitalizations. The order is expected to stay in effect until at least May 20.

Premier Doug Ford also announced new measures to combat the virus, including prohibitions on interprovincial travel, police powers which allow officers to question people suspected of going to social gatherings and closures of outdoor recreational amenities, except playgrounds.

Even with signs of improvement, Bogoch said the province is not ready to reopen yet and must focus on driving down virus spread and administering vaccines.

“Let's keep the momentum rolling, and there's no way we should be even thinking about opening up when we're at the stage that we’re in right now, we just have to keep going down this pathway, we'll get there.”

Ontario marked a milestone on Thursday with over five million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine administered across the province.

To date, 368,403 people have been fully vaccinated against the virus. Two doses of approved vaccines available in Ontario are needed for full immunization.

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.