After weeks of watching COVID-19 case numbers rise exponentially in Ontario, the province just saw a significant decrease in new patients confirmed over the course of 24 hours — and for the second day in a row.

Only 437 new cases of the 2019 novel coronavirus were confirmed through Ontario's integrated Public Health Information System on Saturday, according to the Ministry of Health's dedicated COVID-19 web portal.

While "zero" would be an ideal figure to see, 437 is a marked improvement over the 568 new cases reported last week at this time, and a welcome dip from the record high single-day-increase of 640 patients announced Friday morning.

In fact, today's new-case total is the lowest Ontario has posted in nearly two weeks, and the percentage increase — just 3.1 per cent, day over day — is among the lowest observed since the pandemic first hit the province in January.

April 26: Ontario saw 437 new #COVID19 cases today. Yesterday my flattening model was predicting 478 cases on the low side, being below that is good if the trend continues.
Our max cases dropped in the model too, although today it takes longer to reach our max cases. #OnPoli https://t.co/Dms2TqfZRM pic.twitter.com/fV6vZxIt9d

— Jamie Mitchell (@realJ_Mitchell) April 26, 2020

Ontario may have reported just 421 new cases of COVID-19 on April 13, but with 7,470 cases in total at the time, this represented an overall increase of 6.0 per cent.

While today's number is slightly higher, 437 new cases out of a total 14,432 represents a proportionate increase of just 3.1 per cent.

The province also reported just 24 new deaths this morning, down from 48 the day previous, and the number of cases considered to be "resolved" keeps going up.

As of Sunday morning, the Ministry of Health is reporting exactly 8,000 recovered patients — roughly 55.4 per cent of all those confirmed to have contracted the virus to date.

Ontario has reported 437 new cases of COVID-19. This is the lowest increase in new cases in nearly two weeks #Ontatio #Coronavirus #COVID19 #COVIDOntario pic.twitter.com/YmWtEbqPlJ

— blogTO (@blogTO) April 26, 2020

We're not yet within the wheelhouse of marking 200 new cases per day or less — the figure Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams says he'd like to see before Premier Doug Ford considers opening things back up within the province — but we're definitely making progress.

Ontario is also making great strides in terms of testing, boasting a new high number of 12,020 tests completed on Saturday, bringing the total number of tests done to date up to 229,638.

Sadly, while community-transmitted cases of outbreak do seem to have peaked in the province (for now), rates of COVID-19 in long-term care homes and other congregate settings continue to rise.

As of Sunday morning, 167 outbreaks had been reported in long-term care homes across the province with 455 lives lost — up five outbreaks and 15 deaths since the previous report.