Ontario is reporting its lowest number of new cases of COVID-19 in more than a week but the total doesn’t include the latest information from nearly a dozen public health units due to an issue with the provincial database.

Health Minister Christine Elliott says that there were 76 new instances of the virus confirmed on Wednesday, which would be the lowest number since Aug. 11 when the removal of dozens of duplicate cases brought the 24-hour tally down to a five-month low of 33.

Today’s number, however, does not include the latest cases from 11 public health units, including Hamilton, Windsor-Essex and Niagara, due to an unspecified issue with Ontario’s Integrated Public Health Information System (iPHIS).

That system has been plagued by problems throughout the pandemic and the province finally agreed to replace it in June with a “custom-built case and contact management system.”

“We’re making great progress: in fact, all 11 impacted units are transitioning to the new system today, at which point 31 of 34 PHUs will be using it,” Elliott said of the new system on Thursday, noting that the latest issue is “another reminder” of why it is needed.

More than half of new cases in Toronto, Peel

Elliott said that the 11 public health units that were unable to load their data to the provincial database on Wednesday reported a combined eight new cases one day prior

It is therefore likely that the true number of new cases confirmed on Wednesday will still be below the 100 threshold for the first time in two days one all the dust is settled.

The five-day average of new cases now stands at 96.6. It stood at 80 at this point last week and 89 at this point two weeks ago, suggesting that the numbers have mostly flatlined after being on the decline for months.

Of the 76 new infections confirmed on Wednesday, more than half of the new infections are in either Toronto (21 cases) or Peel Region (19 cases). There is also an additional seven cases spread across the rest of the GTA, including four in York Region.

The number of active cases across the province, meanwhile, remains unchanged at 964 after the province moved 76 existing cases over to “recovered” in its database, matching the number of new cases exactly.

Hospitalizations also remain lower than they have been since the early days of the pandemic.

On Wednesday there were just 35 people hospitalized with COVID-19, including 15 in intensive care units.

At one point in April there were more than 1,000 people hospitalized with 264 of them receiving care in the ICU.

Other highlights from the data:

• There was one additional death confirmed on Wednesday, bringing the total so far to 2,793.
• Ontario conducted another 25,913 tests on Wednesday.
• Of the new cases confirmed on Wednesday, the majority (40) involved people between the ages of 20 and 39.
• There are now just 10 active outbreaks in long-term care homes. Since the beginning of the pandemic there has been a cumulative total of 407 outbreaks in long-term care homes.
• Ottawa continues to see a spike in new cases with 11 more reported on Wednesday