The 2019 novel coronavirus continues to spread at a clip in Ontario, with health officials now reporting 3,255 confirmed cases of COVID-19 across the province.

With 462 new patients diagnosed between Thursday and Friday, this marks the highest one-day jump in Ontario's case total to date with a 16.5 per cent increase over just 24 hours.

Fourteen newly-reported deaths bring the total number of Ontarians who've now been killed as a result of the pandemic to 67, while 1,023 cases are now marked as "resolved."

The recovery rate among cases recorded to date is 31.4 per cent while the fatality rate is 2.1 per cent. Thirty-two outbreaks have now been reported in long-term care facilities across the province.

Ontario's latest update: https://t.co/kfCaO2dxDd shows their figures as of yesterday with 462 additional cases and 67 total deaths. Date gathered by others from public health units puts Ontario deaths at 85. https://t.co/qC9lXYrOFS pic.twitter.com/R1bJXsX300

— Jane Philpott (@janephilpott) April 3, 2020

Public Health Ontario's daily epidemiologic summary states that, of all 3,255 confirmed cases, 21.7% can be attributed to travel. Another 11.7 per cent of cases involved someone who was a close contact of another confirmed case.

Nearly 17 per cent did not fall under either of the above categories and 49.7 per cent is said to have "exposure information pending."

As public health officials have been warning for months, rates of patients needing to be hospitalized, put into ICUs and on ventilators is rising fast. As of Friday morning, some 462 people with COVID-19 were in hospital. The number of COVID-19 patients in ICUs is currently 194, while 140 of those patients are said to be on ventilators.

"Over the last few days I've talked about how critical the next few weeks will be in Ontario," said Premier Doug Ford during a press conference on Thursday.

"I've talked about the threat we’re facing from this terrible virus... the truth is, the situation is extremely, extremely serious."

Current status of #COVID19 in #Ontario [Apr 2 10:30am]: 2793 cases* (401 new cases, 53 deaths, 2052 pending results) #COVID19ontario #covid19Canada #COVIDー19 #COVID19ON #onpoli #COVID_19 #onhealth #StayAtHomeSaveLives
Data: https://t.co/wWVxY8xGns pic.twitter.com/R3z6dna0Hi

— Dr. Jennifer Kwan (@jkwan_md) April 2, 2020

Ford's government is expected to release modelling data later today that projects just how dire the COVID-19 situation could become.

Despite calls for it from the public, this data has so far been kept private so as not to evoke panic.

Canada, which surpassed 10,000 COVID-19 patients on Thursday, is now reporting 11,747 confirmed cases across the country, nearly half of them (5,518) in the province of Quebec.

At least 896,450 people have now been infected with the deadly coronavirus globally, according to the World Health Organization, with 45,525 deaths confirmed as of April 2.

The WHO's global risk level for COVID-19 understandably remains "very high."