Ontario health officials are confirming a spike in new cases of COVID-19 today, with 821 new infections reported Tuesday morning. 

This jump comes after 704 new cases were reported yesterday, and 658 cases were confirmed in the previous day. 

#COVID19 in #Ontario [Oct 20]:
65896 known cases* (821 new cases)
3053 total deaths (3 new deaths)
56606 resolved (628 new resolved)

See THREAD for more graphs📈⤵️#onhealth #COVID19ontario #onpoli pic.twitter.com/sWFVgfqwZ4

— Dr. Jennifer Kwan (@jkwan_md) October 20, 2020

According to Health Minister Christine Elliott, public health units also completed just over 24,000 tests yesterday — which is less than half of the province's stated goal of 50,000 tests per day by mid-October. 

As a result, Ontario's positivity rate has surpassed 3 per cent — considered to be a critical threshold —  and currently sits at 3.4 per cent.

Ontario is reporting 821 cases of #COVID19 as over 24,000 tests were completed. Locally, there are 327 new cases in Toronto, 136 in Peel, 64 in York Region and 79 in Ottawa. There are 628 more resolved cases.

— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) October 20, 2020

Of the new cases confirmed by the province, 327 are in Toronto, 136 are in Peel, 64 are in York Region and 79 are in Ottawa.

Another 628 cases are meanwhile considered to be resolved, and three new deaths have also been reported. All told, 6,237 active cases remain in the province. 

Hospitalizations have also been gradually increasing over the past couple of months, and there are now 274 COVID-19 patients in hospital, 72  in ICUs and 45 on ventilators.