The number of new COVID-19 infections in Ontario has once again surpassed 1,000 but the province is reporting a notable boost in testing today.
Ontario health officials recorded 1,003 new infections today, up marginally from the 998 confirmed on Thursday but a significant increase from the 896 reported last Friday.
The rolling seven-day average of new infections is now 997, up from 909 last week.
More than 41,000 tests were completed over the past 24 hours, up from the nearly 36,000 tests processed on the previous day.
The uptick in testing has pushed the test positivity rate down to 2.4 per cent, a drop from 3.3 per cent on Thursday but on par with the positivity rate confirmed last Friday.
The province has yet to reach its goal of processing 50,000 tests per day.
Another 14 virus-related deaths were recorded in Ontario today, eight of which involved residents of long-term care homes in the province.
The seven-day average of deaths reported in a single day has risen to 12, up from seven one week ago.
The province is reporting 380 virus-related hospitalizations today, one fewer than the number recorded one day earlier.
But a count of data from local public health units and hospital networks found there were at least 420 people in hospital for treatment of COVID-19 on Friday.
With 949 new recoveries today, the number of active infections in the province is now 8,398.
There were 300 new cases in Toronto today, 280 in Peel Region, and 125 in York Region.
The Ford government previously announced that York Region, Ottawa, and Peel Region would move to the orange category of its new tiered system for COVID-19 restrictions on Saturday, a change that would allow gyms to reopen and restaurants to resume indoor dining in those regions.
Toronto requested to wait one more week before allowing those businesses to reopen due to high levels of virus-related activity in the city.
In the new framework released by the Ford government earlier this week, the province said that a weekly incidence rate of more than 100 new infections per 100,000 people could justify moving a region into the red category.
Including today’s data, Peel’s infections per 100,000 residents over the past seven days now stands at 117.
On Friday afternoon, Premier Ford confirmed that Peel would be placed in the red category, a move which would still allow gyms and indoor dining rooms to reopen but with stricter capacity limits.
