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Ontario reported 379 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, including 21 deaths, bringing the provincial total to 4,726 cases.

The death toll has risen to 153.

The province has 614 hospitalized patients due to COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, with 233 patients in intensive care units and 187 in ICUs on a ventilator.

Provincial officials also reported 1,802 patients have recovered from the virus.

Ontario health workers have tested 81,364 people for COVID-19 which is only 2,568 tests since Monday where the total tested was 78,796.

Over the last week, the province has typically tested about four to six thousand people a day. Of the 2,568 tests about 14.76 per cent of cases were positive.

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Ontario’s chief medical officer of health Dr. David Williams said Tuesday afternoon that part of that decline may be attributed to a lower demand at testing facilities.

Officials said as testing capabilities continue to rise in the province, they are looking to lessen any restrictions that are in place with regards to testing protocols for vulnerable populations — like those in long-term care homes — and at assessment centres.

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There are 691 people currently under investigation awaiting test results.

Tuesday’s report marks an 8.7 per cent increase in cases, compared to 7.7 per cent on Monday, 11.2 per cent on Sunday, 11.5 per cent on Saturday and 16.5 per cent on Friday.

“We should never sit back, this can come with vengeance,” Premier Doug Ford said at a news conference on Tuesday, referring to a decline in positive cases over the last few days.

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“If we see a little decline by no means should we be sitting back and thinking that the curve is going the other way. If we see two, three weeks of the curve going down, then we are in the right direction but that doesn’t mean let up in any means. We have to keep going hard, right to the end, every single day and every single minute.”

Greater Toronto Area public health units account for 51.5 per cent of all cases in the province.

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