Ontario reported 1,095 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, along with 23 deaths, as Toronto hit its lowest daily case total since the end of the second wave.
The provincial seven-day rolling average of new cases now stands at 1,622, down 70 from Tuesday.
Across the GTA, Toronto reported 257 cases, its lowest daily count since March 3.
Elsewhere, Peel Region reported 215 new cases, York reported 101 new cases, Durham reported 123 new cases, Halton reported 27 and Hamilton reported 54.
Two of the 23 deaths reported involved residents of the long-term care system.
There have now been 8,678 deaths due to COVID-19 confirmed across Ontario since March 2020.
Hospitalizations continue to drop, with the Ministry of Health disclosing 1,073 in hospital due to COVID-19 on Wednesday, down from 1,401 one week earlier.
Of those, 672 were in intensive care and 469 were breathing with the help of a ventilator.
Provincial labs processed just over 24,000 specimens in the past day, with another 18,500 under investigation.
Ontario reported a multi-month low of 1,039 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, and 41 deaths over the previous 48 hour period.
Ontario Chief Medical Officer Dr. David Williams said yesterday he hopes the daily case count will fall to 600 or even 550 by mid-June when the provincial reopening plan begins.
Williams also called for schools to reopen in June, something Premier Doug Ford rejected when asked last week.
As of last week, approximately 85 per cent of all new COVID-19 cases were screening positive for the three most prominent variants of concern: B.1.1.7, P.1 and B.1.351.
Ontario said another 135,308 doses of COVID-19 vaccine were administered on Tuesday, with 8.4 million shots administered since Dec. 2020.
More than 569,000 people have completed a full two-dose inoculation.
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.
