As of Saturday night, Ontario’s regional public health units are reporting 1,439 confirmed or presumptive cases of COVID-19, with 21 deaths.

The total, the Star’s count of the latest public tallies and news releases posted to the websites of Ontario’s 34 public health units, is up 213 cases from Friday night, a 17.3 per cent single-day increase.

The COVID-19 epidemic has grown rapidly in the province this past week, and all 34 regions are now reporting confirmed cases.

The Middlesex-London Health Unit reported its first COVID-19 death Saturday, a man in his 70s who had tested positive on March 17 after returning from a trip to Portugal. Elsewhere, the rural Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit, south of Hamilton, also reported its first death late Friday, a resident of a retirement home who died in hospital.

Also late Friday, the Thunder Bay District Health Unit became the last to report its first COVID-19 patient, a man in his 60s who tested positive after returning home from Florida with his wife, who is considered a probable case.

The count of cases reported by the public health units is significantly higher than the total that was reported by the province earlier Saturday. The province has reported 1,144 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 19 deaths — a single-day increase of 151 cases from the count it published the previous day.

The province, which publishes an update each morning, also reported a significant decrease in the backlog of patients for whom COVID-19 tests had been taken but were not yet completed. That backlog fell by nearly 1,400 uncompleted tests, to 8,690.

A Star analysis published Friday found Ontario may have missed one third or more COVID-19 cases as the testing backlog has grown.

As of Saturday night, the five public health units in the GTA were reporting 966 cases of COVID-19, including 10 deaths. At the same time last week, they had reported 351 cases, three fatal.

The Star is tallying the public health units’ case reports each night. This count was taken at 10:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 28:

Toronto Public Health: 512 cases, including 4 deaths

York Region Public Health: 193 cases, including 2 deaths

Peel Public Health: 154 cases

Ottawa Public Health: 106 cases, including 1 death

Durham Region Health Department: 86 cases, including 3 deaths

Region of Waterloo, Public Health: 69 cases

City of Hamilton Public Health Services: 52 cases, including 1 death

Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit: 33 cases, including 3 deaths

Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit: 33 cases, including 3 deaths

Middlesex-London Health Unit: 25 cases, including 1 death

Halton Region Health Department: 21 cases, including 1 death

Windsor-Essex County Health Unit: 15 cases

Niagara Region Public Health: 14 cases, including 1 death

Peterborough Public Health: 13 cases

Lambton Public Health: 10 cases

Porcupine Health Unit: 10 cases

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Eastern Ontario Health Unit: 9 cases

Brant County Health Unit: 7 cases

Public Health Sudbury & Districts: 7 cases

Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health: 7 cases

Chatham-Kent Public Health: 6 cases

Hastings Prince Edward Public Health: 6 cases

Southwestern Public Health: 6 cases

Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit: 5 cases, including 1 death

Huron Perth Public Health: 5 cases

North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit: 4 cases

Grey Bruce Health Unit: 3 cases

Northwestern Health Unit: 3 cases

Algoma Public Health: 2 cases

Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health Unit: 2 cases

Thunder Bay District Health Unit: 2 cases

Renfrew County & District Health Unit: 1 case

Timiskaming Health Unit: 1 case