Ontario has reported 568 new cases of COVID-19 over the last 24-hours and another 39 deaths.

The number eclipses the record 564 cases that were reported on Friday, though it is likely that it is somewhat inflated after Toronto Public Health was unable to add its new cases to the provincial database on Friday following a technical change in its tracking platform.

The 39 new deaths confirmed on Sunday is up from the 36 confirmed on Saturday but remains well off the record 55 confirmed on April 17.

The total death toll so far now stands at 553 with nearly half of those deaths (240) involving residents at long-term care facilities.

Encouragingly both the number of people hospitalized with the virus and the number of those people in Intensive Care Units has declined from one day prior, continuing a recent trend.

There are now 809 people hospitalized with COVID-19 provincewide (down 11) with 247 of those people currently in intensive care (down three).

The province also continues to increase the number of tests that it is doing after weeks in which it was last among Canadian provinces on a per capita basis. The province has now conducted a total of 156,097 tests, including 9,643 on Saturday.

The latest data released by the provinces comes ahead of the release of updated modeling by epidemiologists from Public Health Ontario on Monday.

The last modeling to be publically released suggested that there could be more than 1,200 people in ICU units as of today’s date as a “best case scenario” but the province has so far managed to skirt that grim prediction.

The modeling also suggested that there would be 1,600 deaths by April 30, a scenario which now seems unlikely.

“My friends our efforts are paying off and I know we are all eager to get back to work and back to normal,” Premier Doug Ford said on Saturday. “But until we have that vaccine, letting our guard down potentially means exposing millions to the virus.”

There are now 10,578 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ontario, including deaths and recoveries.

Toronto Public Health, meanwhile, has reported 3,546 cases and 174 deaths as of Sunday.

Other highlights from the data: