Confirmed cases of COVID-19 continue to rise exponentially in Ontario, as is being seen in many other jurisdictions worldwide, with 260 new patients reported by the Ministry of Health this morning.

The provincial government's official numbers now show that a total of 1,966 people have been infected by the 2019 novel coronavirus — 591 of them in Toronto alone as of Tuesday morning, according to the city.

Another 4,280 people are currently under investigation the province has tested more than 51,000 people for the deadly virus to date.

Today's new patient total marks a 15.2 per cent increase in cases across Ontario. While significantly higher than the numbers we were seeing last week at this time, 260 is a lot better than yesterday's jump of 351.

NEW: Ontario reports a 15% increase in positive #COVID19 cases overnight- w more than 4,000 cases pending. 33 people have died from #Coronavirus in Ontario- out of nearly 2,000 cases. ⁦@CityNews⁩ pic.twitter.com/3PRTEAOK0j

— Cristina Howorun (@CityCristinaH) March 31, 2020

The bad news is that 10 more people have died between yesterday and today as a result of contracting the virus. Government officials are no longer providing details about the genders, ages, locations or methods of transmission for specific patients.

All we know at this point is that 33 of all patients diagnosed with COVID-19 in Ontario have now died, representing a fatality rate of around 1.7 per cent.

The good news is that more than 100 patients joined the list of "resolved" cases overnight, bringing the total number of people thought to have recovered from COVID-19 in Ontario to 534. This marks a recovery rate of 27.2 to date.

Ontario data released this a.m. shows the province is catching up on testing, with fewer test results pending over each of the past 2 reports. But since 2 days ago the share of positive #coronavirus tests has increased from 3.2% to 4.2% (calculated from https://t.co/ej4C0i7Pm4 ).

— Daniel Schwartz (@danielcbc) March 31, 2020

"Of all cases, 25.7 per cent had travelled in the 14 days prior to becoming ill, 10.2 per cent had close contact with a confirmed case, 16.8 per cent had neither and 47.3 per cent have exposure information pending," reads this morning's update on the Ontario government's dedicated coronavirus portal.

"Greater Toronto Area public health units account for 59.1 per cent of cases."

A total of 693,282 people have now been infected globally as part of the outbreak, which originated in Wuhan, China, late last year, according to The World Health Organization (WHO.)

At least 33,106 coronavirus-related deaths had been reported to the WHO as of March 30.