KITCHENER -- There have been 57 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Waterloo Region, which marks the first time the daily case count has been below 60 in almost a week.

The Tuesday afternoon online dashboard update also shows 53 more cases considered resolved, while the active case count has gone up by two.

There were no related deaths reported in the region in the past 24 hours. The last recorded death was on May 4.

Seven more people have become hospitalized with the virus. The number of those being treated in the ICU with the disease has stayed the same.

Health officials have identified 37 more cases they consider to be variants of concern. The total number of B.1.1.7 variants (first discovered in the U.K.) has also gone up by 37, while the total count of P.1 variants (first discovered in Brazil) has also increased by one.

The number of active facility outbreaks in the area has gone up by one.

Another 4,731 tests have been administered since Friday. The Region’s positivity rate has gone up by 0.4 per cent, while the reproductive rate has gone done by 0.2 per cent.

This brings the Waterloo Region COVID-19 totals to 15,364 confirmed cases, 14,594 resolved, 254 deaths, 502 active cases, 43 hospitalized, 28 in the ICU, 2,779 variants of concern, 2,450 B.1.1.7’s, three B.1.351’s (first detected in South Africa), 18 P.1’s, 12 active outbreaks, 483,789 administered tests, positivity rate of 6.3 per cent, and a reproductive rate of one per cent.

In Ontario, the 1,616 infections recorded Tuesday represent a significant drop from the 2,170 reported by the province a day earlier. The last time daily case numbers were this low was on March 24 when 1,571 were logged.

At least 513,102 cases of the novel coronavirus have been confirmed in Ontario, including 479,630 recoveries and 8,506 deaths.

Seventeen of those COVID-19-related fatalities were reported since yesterday,pushing the national death toll to 25,000.