With just over 200 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed on Wednesday, Ontario's Ministry of Health is reporting the lowest one-day patient increase we've seen since the province started keeping track through its daily epidemiologic summaries.

This should come as excellent news to members of the public and government officials alike as (most of) Ontario prepares to enter Stage 2 of reopening, which will allow residents in all but 10 regions once again visit restaurants, get haircuts and swim in public pools.

A total of 31,544 lab-confirmed cases of the 2019 novel coronavirus have now been logged through the ministry's Public Health Information System, along with 2,487 deaths (64.3 per cent of them in long-term care homes).

#Covid19Ontario Dashboard updated June 11 1030am.
A good day:
- 203 new cases, 12 deaths
- 505 recovered ✅
- RECORD 24,341 tests completed ⭐️ 👏
- 7-day test positivity drops to 1.5% ✅ (.8% on day)
- Hospitalizations ⬇️ 7% to 538 ⭐️#Covid19 #Onhealthhttps://t.co/zKoRbG4ELa pic.twitter.com/YP4szfxCBL

— 📊Bill Comeau (@Billius27) June 11, 2020

Today's addition of 203 new cases represents an increase rate of only 0.6 per cent, which is the lowest Ontario has posted since the pandemic first started spreading in February.

And not only are we tracking quite well this week in terms of case numbers — coming in under the 300 mark again for the fourth day in a row — but Ontario also just broke its own daily testing record.

Public health officials completed 24,341 tests for the virus yesterday, according to the Ministry of Health's COVID-19 data portal, marking the highest number of tests recorded in 24 hours to date and falling just shy of the province's own stated capacity of 25,000.

"Having processed nearly 925,000 tests since the outbreak started, Ontario now ranks second in Canada in cumulative per capita testing, behind only Alberta," said Minister of Health Christine Elliott in a statement Thursday morning.

"With our population size, that's a remarkable milestone.

#COVID19Ontario data

203 net new cases - 0.6% growth rate - very low

7 Day Trend in cases DOWN from 286 to 264, growth rate DOWN to 0.9%

Follow the trends, not the day to day roller-coaster

Nice job fellow Ontarians!

Addition insights through the day

CC: @B2Bspecialist pic.twitter.com/oSsyDISUhh

— Sal Vella (@salvella) June 11, 2020

Recovery rates also continue to soar across the province with 505 cases declared "resolved" in today's report alone.

As of Thursday morning, Ontario's recovery rate for COVID-19 is sitting at 82.1 per cent, while the mortality rate holds steady at 7.9 per cent. Twelve new deaths were recorded across the province on Wednesday.

"With 505 resolved, there are now 302 fewer active cases," said Elliott of the situation.

"In fact, since Tuesday there are 709 fewer active cases of the virus in Ontario. The vast majority of new cases continue to come from the GTA."