Confirmed cases of the 2019 novel coronavirus continue to rise in Ontario, but so too do the number of patients who are thought to have recovered from the virus.

As of Monday morning, 3,121 of the province's total 7,470 cases of COVID-19 are listed as "resolved" on the Ministry of Health's dedicated pandemic web portal.

This represents a whopping 44.9 per cent of all confirmed cases across the province — up from just 41.4 per cent at the end of last week.

While important to note that the designation of "resolved" applies to anyone who is 14 days past the onset of symptoms and no longer in medical care, regardless of whether or not they've tested negative for the virus, these most-recent recovery numbers are giving hope to those who've been tracking them closely.

I do want to applaud Ontario for the constant update of information and staying proactive on ensuring people recover from this. We have the second most cases (blah) but, we have the most recoveries! #COVID2019 #COVID19 #covidontario #COVID19Ontario pic.twitter.com/lIMRbtVUz3

— A Mind That Races (@amindthatraces) April 13, 2020

Public Health Ontario reported in its daily epidemiologic summary for April 12 that 291 cumulative deaths had been recorded within the province since the outbreak began, representing a 6.2 per cent increase over the day previous (down from 8.3 per cent the day before that.)

Analysts have been been noting this slowdown in the number of new deaths over the past few days in Ontario, as well a decrease in the rate of new case growth.

"One thing is clear to me, overall growth is slowing down. I've tracked the percent increase from each day's updated exponential model. It spiked in early March before settling down to about 18% per day," wrote Ontario teacher and data analyst Jamie Mitchell in a tweet after seeing today's numbers.

"Recently it's been steadily decreasing."

COVID-19 in Ontario

April 13: 7,470 confirmed cases (+421 new)

👉 Daily case growth under 10% for 5 days in a row (6.0% today)
👉 Case growth 5-day average fell for the 12th day in a row to 7.2% (from 8.3% yesterday)

Strong progress continues. https://t.co/fdR3kxtInY

— Phil Jacobson (@phil_jacobson) April 13, 2020

Mitchell, who has been making projection models using the province's own raw data in recent weeks, noted on Monday that, while deaths have been roughly doubling over the previous seven days, this number "has slowly been decreasing."

Optimistic as we may all want to be, it's important to approach these numbers with caution — Ontario is certainly nowhere out of the clear.

Public health officials are still predicting that case totals will continue to grow in the coming weeks, especially now that Premier Doug Ford has demanded an increase in testing.

All scientists have been careful to note, however, that their projections are rough and that things could change at any time.

Each day it looks like we've moved past the exponential growth part of the epidemic. Tomorrow that model thinks we will have over 9000 cases diagnosed in Ontario (an increase of almost 1600). pic.twitter.com/r2Rg5QDuiv

— Jamie Mitchell (@realJ_Mitchell) April 13, 2020

Predictive modelling projections released earlier this month suggest that Ontario will see 80,000 cases of COVID-19 confirmed by the end of April, with 1,600 fatalities. Even with full public health interventions, Ontario could see between 3,000 and 15,000 deaths by the end of the pandemic.

As it stands now, 3.9 per cent of all those who've tested positive for COVID-19 in Ontario have died.

Some 735 have died across Canada out of 24,835 confirmed patients, and the World Health Organization is reporting 1,696,588 cases worldwide.

More than 105,952 people have now died as a result of contracting the virus across the globe, according to the WHO, with the U.S. reporting the highest number of fatalities anywhere at 22,858 as of April 12.