With all key public health indicators necessary for Ontario to move forward with reopening now being met or exceeded, it's looking more and more like the province is on the path to victory in its fight against COVID-19.

Only 178 new cases of the deadly viral disease were confirmed through the Ministry of Health's integrated Public Health Information System on Thursday, marking the sixth day in a row we've seen cases come in below the critical 200 mark.

This represents an increase rate of just 0.5 per cent, with 33,095 lab-confirmed cases now logged since the pandemic first hit in January.

June 19 update: 33,095 #COVID19 cases in #Ontario. Today, 178 new cases and 11 new deaths were reported (2564 total).#COVID19ON #COVID19Ontario #covid19Canada #onhealth #onpoli

More here 👉 https://t.co/7w2j9q1fWA pic.twitter.com/U5cCJyjKdg

— Ahmed Al-Jaishi, Epidemiologist (@AAlJaishi) June 19, 2020

Deaths were up slightly on Thursday compared to the day previous, with 11 reported in today's COVID-19 data drop.

The overall mortality rate just dropped to its lowest number yet, however, since the province started keeping track through its daily epidemiologic summaries: 7.7 per cent.

A total of 2,564 people across the province had died as a result of contracting the highly-contagious coronavirus as of Thursday afternoon — 1,645 (or 64.2 per cent) of them residents in long-term care homes.

Active cases are on a persistent decline, which itself is excellent news for those three regions of the province still stuck in Stage 1 of the reopening process (Toronto, Peel and Windsor).

Provincial health officials have, after all, cited both a consistent new case count below 200 and high enough testing rates to detect new outbreaks quickly as criteria for moving forward.

A closer look at #COVIDー19 daily changes in #Ontario🎢

New cases: 178
New deaths: 11
New resolved: 246

Thicker line is 7 day moving average.#COVID19 #COVID19ON #covid19Canada #onhealth pic.twitter.com/TXJgmbMP1o

— Dr. Jennifer Kwan (@jkwan_md) June 19, 2020

Speaking of testing, the province is now exceeding not only its own benchmark numbers but its own stated capacity of 25,000 tests per day with a record-breaking 27,225 completed on Thursday alone.

"Having processed over 27,000 tests yesterday, Ontario continues to lead the country in daily #COVID19 testing," wrote Minister of Health Christine Elliott of the numbers on Friday morning.

"With a population more than three times their size, we're very quickly catching up to Alberta in cumulative tests per capita, the only province ahead of Ontario."