Cautious optimism may be in order today after public health officials announced the lowest one-day increase rate in new cases of COVID-19 Ontario has seen for weeks.

With 309 newly-diagnosed patients, the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the province now stands at 4,347 — a 7.7 per cent increase over the day previous.

The province also saw less deaths reported on Monday than it did on Sunday (25 deaths), Saturday (27 deaths) and Friday (14 deaths). 

Thirteen additional people infected by the 2019 novel coronavirus have been reported dead through the province's integrated Public Health Information System as of Monday morning, bringing the total number of fatalities in Ontario to date to 132, or roughly 3 per cent of all cases.

Status of #COVID19 in #Ontario [Apr 6 10:30am]: 4347 known cases* (309 new cases, 132 total deaths, 13 new deaths, 329 results pending)#COVID19ontario #covid19Canada #COVIDー19 #onhealth #COVID19ON #onpoli #COVID_19 #StayAtHomeSaveLives
Data: https://t.co/wWVxY8xGns pic.twitter.com/VfSUFk0H5r

— Dr. Jennifer Kwan (@jkwan_md) April 6, 2020

A whopping 37.4 per cent of all cases, however, are now listed on the government's dedicated COVID-19 web page as "resolved."

This means that at least 1,624 confirmed patients are either listed by local public health units as recovered or are 14 days past the onset of symptoms and no longer in medical care.

Also good to see are the relatively low number of patients currently under investigation: 329. Last week at this time, the province had 5,650 tests in the queue with 48,461 total tests completed. Today, the number of people tested for COVID-19 in Ontario sits at 78,796.

This suggests that the province has at long last worked through its backlog of test kits, and that we should be seeing more accurate, up-to-date information reflected in case totals soon — though it doesn't mean we're anywhere near safe from the threat of this global pandemic.

#COVID19Ontario Using the data that @OPHA_Ontario has made publicly available here is a look at how the #covid19 test results back log has been dealt with vs. tests performed. Curious to know what changed in testing process to allow for no more backlog pic.twitter.com/0JtHJQKVKH

— Thomas Abdelmessih (@TAbdelmessih) April 6, 2020

The province's top doctors still predict that Ontario will see 80,000 cases of COVID-19 confirmed by the end of this month alone with 1,600 fatalities.

Predictive modelling projections released last week suggest that, with full public health interventions, Ontario will see between 3,000 and 15,000 deaths by the end of the pandemic, which could take up to two years to peter out.

As of Monday morning, 15,822 cases of COVID-19 had been recorded in Canada along with 280 deaths.

The World Health Organization is currently reporting 1,133,758 confirmed cases of the deadly virus globally with 62,784 deaths.