Ontario health officials reported 411 new COVID-19 infections on Saturday, along with 31 more deaths, taking the province’s total case count including recoveries to 6,648.

The increase in deaths is the single highest daily rise in deaths since they started occurring in Ontario in mid-March.

However, the increase in active cases is smaller than those reported this week, with 478 coming in on Friday, 483 on Thursday and a whopping 550 on Wednesday.

“I certainly think this is a positive trend and direction,” Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams said at a news conference on Saturday, suggesting that Sunday’s numbers may be even lower.

“I’m looking at that optimistically. We are certainly bending the curve, whether we’ve actually flattened it is another question.”

Two-hundred and fifty-three Ontarians have died due to novel coronavirus infection in the last month.

But Ontario's 34 local public health units confirmed even more deaths by midday Saturday, saying 276 Ontarians had died due to COVID-19.

The province says 116 of the deaths occurred in people who were infected due to an outbreak at their long-term care home or the hospital where they were being treated for an unrelated illness.

Another 284 Ontario patients recovered from the illness, bringing that number to 2,858 or 43 per cent of all confirmed infections.

The province completed 3,648 tests between Friday and Saturday, nearly 2,000 less than what was turned around between Thursday and Friday.

On Friday, the province announced that the daily output will rise to about 8,000 tests by April 15, 12,500 tests a day by April 22 and 16,000 tests per day by May 6.

The initial expansion to about 13,250 tests a day will be split between hospitals, people presenting at assessment centres with symptoms, healthcare workers themselves, long-term care residents and the people who work at long-term care homes.

"We’re not going to test everyone who wants a test, we want to test people who need a test," Williams said on Saturday.

A further 1,517 people remain under investigation for possible infection.