Ontario reports 356 new cases of COVID-19 and 45 more deaths

Ontario is reporting 356 new cases of COVID-19, an increase of 1.2 percent, bringing the total number of cases to 29,403, with nearly 79 per cent of those resolved.

Currently there are 776 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, 121 of those are in ICU and 94 are on ventilators.

The province completed more than 20,800 tests with 12,760 currently under investigation.

The death toll in the province is up by 45, pushing the total to 2,357 – 64 per cent of which comes from residents in long-term care homes.

Meanwhile, Premier Doug Ford says Ontario health officials are in discussions about the second stage of the province’s economic reopening plan.

He hopes to bring it forward over the next week.

Numbers of new cases have gone up and down in the two weeks since Ontario entered stage one.

The province has previously said it wants to see a consistent, two-to-four-week decline in new cases before reopening more.

Ford says even though Ontario extended its state of emergency Tuesday until June 30, it won’t slow down the reopening process.