KITCHENER -- Health officials in the Region of Waterloo reported 88 more COVID-19 cases on Friday.

Friday's update brings the total number of cases to 13,675 to date, including 12,820 recoveries and 249 deaths.

There are 592 active cases in the region.

Another 81 cases have screened positive for a variant of concern. A total of 1,440 cases have screened for a variant. Of those, 44 are confirmed as the B.1.1.7 variant, and one each have screened for the B.1.351 and P.1 variants.

There are 57 people who have tested positive for COVID-19, including 25 in the ICU.

There are 29 active outbreaks in the region.

Regional partners have performed 456,749 COVID-19 tests to date.

The region's seven-day positivity rate is at 6.5 per cent. The reproductive rate remains at 1.0.

Speaking at the region's COVID-19 briefing on Friday, Medical Officer of Health Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang said cases in the region are stabilizing, but said people need to continue to follow public health guidelines closely.

"We can't celebrate too early," she said. "We have to actually really make sure that we're in a state where our ICU beds start to empty."

Ontario reported 4,505 COVID-19 cases on Friday, an increase over the 3,683 reported on Thursday.

The province has now reported 437,310 lab-confirmed cases of the disease to date, including 387,712 recoveries and 7,863 deaths.

There are 41,735 active cases across Ontario.