Ontario's COVID-19 numbers are looking better and better by the day as most of the province prepares to enter Stage 2 of reopening.

Ministry of Health officials reported only 250 new cases of the deadly viral disease in Ontario this morning, marking the third day in a row we've seen numbers come in below the 300 mark — and a promising development after more than a month of wildly fluctuating dips and spikes.

With 31,341 patients infected in total since January 15, when the pandemic first hit, this represents an increase rate of just 0.7 per cent (the lowest recorded to date, save for yesterday's identical increase rate.)

While up slightly from the 230 new cases reported Tuesday and the 243 reported on Monday (the lowest number we'd seen in more than 10 weeks at the time), today's increase of 250 is a marked improvement over where we were last Tuesday, when 446 new cases were confirmed.

In #Ontario, another 251 #covid19 #coronavirus cases reported. Now 31341 total, 25380 resolved, 3486 active, 2475 deaths. Updated 6/10/2020.#covid19Canada #COVIDー19 #onhealth #COVID_19 #covidontario #COVID19ontario #onpoli #FlattenTheCurve pic.twitter.com/WFjckIhWdN

— Eugene Y. Chan, Ph.D. (@euges116) June 10, 2020

Even more exciting is the number of cases now considered to be "resolved" by the province: 25,380.

Ontario's recovery rate for COVID-19 finally shot beyond 80 per cent overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday, rising from 79.9 per cent to the current 81 per cent in just 24 hours.

The Ministry of Health also just confirmed one of the lowest daily death totals observed since the outbreak started ramping up with only 11 new fatalities. 

Some 2,475 people have now died across the province as a result of contracting COVID-19, 1,591 of them (or 64.3 per cent) residents of long-term care homes. The province's mortality rate for the virus currently sits at 7.9 per cent.

#Ontario COVID-19 hospitalizations down to lowest since April 5th! @fordnation @celliottability Please let the GTA into Phase 2 next week pic.twitter.com/UxZYw286xy

— Daniel Zafrani (@DMZ2016) June 10, 2020

Also encouraging: The number of people hospitalized with the virus in Ontario continues to plummet. As of Wednesday morning, the province is reporting only 580 COVID-19 patients in hospital, 118 of them in ICU and 86 on ventilators.

While Premier Doug Ford and Minister of Health Christine Elliot maintain that we're still not in the clear, these numbers are giving hope to residents of the province who've been locked down in some way or another now for nearly three months.

Those who live in the 10 public health reasons that won't yet be allowed to enter Stage 2 with the rest of the province on Friday (read: the entirety of the GTA and regions near the border) will be especially pleased to see new case numbers falling.

Unfortunately for Toronto, however, the proportionate number of cases in the region are actually going up (however slightly) as overall case numbers go down. As of Wednesday, Greater Toronto Area public health units account for 67.4 of all COVID-19 cases in Ontario.