Province Sets COVID-19 Record

Ontario Public Health is reporting 978 new cases of COVID-19 today, which marks a new daily high.

The majority of new cases continue to be in the Greater Toronto Area.

There have now been 69,331 cases in Ontario, of which 59,424 people have recovered, including 625 since the last report.

Health Minister Christine Elliott said 309 new cases were in Toronto, followed by 289 in Peel Region, 117 in York Region and 80 in Ottawa.

Meanwhile, the province processed more than 38,000 COVID-19 tests in the previous 24-hour period, which makes Sunday's positivity rate almost 2.7 per cent.

Friday's number of cases is a 1.8 per cent fall compared to the day before.

The other regions in province reporting more than 10 new COVID-19 cases include Durham Region (52), Eastern Ontario Health Unit (17) Simcoe Muskoka (16), Windsor-Essex (12), Halton (31), and Waterloo (21).

Outbreaks have been declared in 77 long-term-care facilities with 229 resident and 237 staff testing positive.

The province also expects to receive antigen-based rapid tests next month, which look for specific markers on the outside of a virus, but officials say it's not yet known how many. There are 30,922 tests that remain under investigation.