Ontario is reporting its second highest daily COVID-19 case count since the start of the pandemic.
The province added 4,227 cases on Friday with seventy-one per cent in the hot spots around the GTHA and Ottawa.
In early January there were 4,249 cases reported but it included 450 cases from a backlog at Toronto Public Health.
Another 18 people have died with the death toll in the province now at 7,512.
The recovery rate has dropped to 90 per cent.
Test positivity, the percentage of tests coming back positive, is at 6.3 per cent.
Over 61,000 tests were done over the last 24 hours and over 105,000 vaccines were given.
There are now 1,492 patients in Ontario hospitals with 552 in intensive care units.
That record high comes as the province has ordered all elective and non-emergent surgeries cancelled as of Monday.