Ontario reported 10 new COVID-19 deaths, as the number of cases in intensive care units continued to decline on Thursday.

The Ministry of Health says seven of the recent deaths occurred in the past month, and three occurred more than a month ago.

Three of the recent deaths occurred among long-term care home residents.

Since March 2020, the province says there have been a total of 12,366 virus-related deaths.

There are currently 661 patients in hospitals across Ontario, up from 611 yesterday and from 644 a week ago, according to the ministry.

Among these hospitalized patients, 165 are in intensive care units, compared to 199 this time last week.

The province conducted just over 15,500 tests in the past 24 hours, and 6,404 tests are currently under investigation.

Ontario reported 2,561 confirmed coronavirus cases, but this is lower than the actual number due to limited testing.

Among the recent cases, 1,408 individuals received three doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, 656 received two doses, 273 were not fully vaccinated, and 224 had unknown vaccination status.

Yesterday, the scientific director of Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, Dr. Peter Juni, said that wastewater data indicates infections are on the rise, just days after the province lifted mask mandates in most indoor settings.

The science table said on Thursday that the concentration of viral copies of the SARS-CoV-2 virus now present in the province’s wastewater is doubling every seven days.

Infectious disease specialist Dr. Alon Vaisman says wastewater data is a reliable measure to monitor virus transmission, but he says questions remain about how severe the new cases are.

He added, "Will we see a rapid increase in hospital admissions and deaths? And I think it is very likely that we will see a significant rise in the number of people infected with COVID, and they will likely have mild or asymptomatic illness, and it is difficult to determine what impact this will have on the healthcare system anytime soon."

So far, 89 percent of Ontarians aged five and over have received one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, 86 percent have received two doses, and 51 percent have received three doses.