Ontario reports a drop in coronavirus cases for second day in a row

The province says 304 new cases of the virus were reported on Sunday, down from the 340 cases confirmed on Saturday and the 391 confirmed as of Friday.

Sunday's data brought the number of lab-confirmed coronavirus cases to 22,957, which included 1,904 deaths and 17,638 recoveries.

The province completed 9,155 tests on Sunday, which is significantly less than the 16,000 tests completed the day before.

The number of new coronavirus cases dropped to 294 last Saturday, but has not dipped below the 300 mark since that time.

While the province has experienced a dramatic decrease in the number of new cases in the last few weeks, the numbers are still much lower than the record high of 640 of new cases reported on April 25.

Premier Doug Ford had launched the first stage of the province's reopening plan, which includes reopening many retail stores to customers on Tuesday for the first time since March.

Ontario's medical officer of health initially expressed some apprehensions in moving forward with reopening the province given that it had not yet seen a consistent two-week decrease in new cases.

The province had 23 deaths on Sunday, which was the same number of deaths that was reported Saturday.

All but 87 deaths have involved people who are over the age of 60 and more than 1,300 deaths are in people 80 and over.

The majority of deaths in the province have been residents who live in long-term care homes.

According to provincial data, seven new outbreaks were reported in long-term care homes on Sunday, bringing to the total number of outbreaks to 276.

The number of patients currently hospitalized with the virus is now at 972, up from 934 in the previous report. And 174 patients are in intensive care while 133 of those are on ventilators.