New COVID-19 cases in the London region neared 100 for the second consecutive day Friday as three more people died from the virus.
The Middlesex London Health Unit said two of the three people who succumbed to COVID-19, a man in his 80s and a woman in her 90s, lived in long-term care. The third person was a man in his 50s who was not associated with any assisted living facility.
The region has reported at least one COVID-10 related death every day so far this year.
The death toll sits at 119.
The health unit logged 91 new infections over the past 24 hours. That is down slightly from Thursday's 95 new cases and is well below the record high of 161 set on Tuesday.
Since the start of the pandemic, there has been a total of 4,127 COVID-19 cases in Middlesex-London.
Outbreaks remain on three units at Victoria hospital. Less than five staff and fewer than five patients on each unit have contracted the virus with no deaths associated with the outbreaks. The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC), which operates Victoria and University hospitals in London, currently has 32 infected staff members and 40 inpatients with COVID-19, 11 of whom are in intensive care. It announced on Thursday, the LHSC would be accepting five non-critical COVID-19 patients from Windsor Regional Hospital, which has been struggling to accommodate a surge of COVID patients.
There are eight London-area long-term care and retirement homes and two local schools with outbreaks.
The vaccination campaign in London continues to ramp up with every dose from the region's first shipment to be in arms within the next two to three days, LHSC chief operating officer Neil Johnson said on Twitter. He added that frontline healthcare workers who have already received the first shot will begin getting their second dose next week. A second shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has to be given 21 days after the first dose to fully inoculate a person against the virus.
Recoveries in the region increased by 42 for a total of 2,958 resolved cases. That leaves 1,050 cases active in London and Middlesex County.
In Elgin and Oxford, there were 40 new COVID-19 infections recorded over the last 24 hours. Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for the two counties, said the latest cases bring the total case count to 1,650. Two more deaths were reported in the region to bring the death toll up to 30. The latest deaths are among residents at Maple Manor in Tillsonburg where a large outbreak has taken hold. To date, 58 residents and 41 employees have contracted the virus. Nine deaths are associated with the outbreak.
There were 42 recoveries in the two counties for a total of 1,268 resolved cases since the start of the pandemic. There are currently 352 active cases in the area.
Provincially, Premier Doug Ford is warning of more restrictions to stop the spread of COVID-19 as Ontario set a new record high of 4,249 cases.
Public health officials have noted the rise above the 4,000 mark was due to a "data upload delay" by Toronto Public Health involving 450 cases from January 5 and 6. But even with those cases taken out of Friday's numbers, the 3,799 remaining infections would still set a new record daily high.
The areas of the province with the most new cases are Toronto (1,382), Peel (691), York Region (427), Niagara (213), and Windsor-Essex (184).
Ontario’s total number of cases now stands at 208,394.
Twenty-six people, including 15 long-term care home residents, died from the virus over the last 24 hours. That is down from Thursday's record 89 COVID-19 deaths. The province's death toll is now 4,882.
Currently, there are 1,446 infected Ontarians in hospital. Of those, 369 are in the intensive care unit and 250 are on ventilators to assist with breathing.
In the last 24 hour period, 71,481COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s positivity rate stands at 6.2 per cent.
Ford warned Friday that more extreme measures, which could include a curfew similar to the one enacted by Quebec, could be coming. Ford said new COVID-19 modelling to be released next week will show potential daily case increases that would "make you fall out of your chair."
“This is the most serious situation we’ve ever been in since the beginning of the pandemic," said Ford.
As for what new restrictions could be put into force, Ford said “everything is on the table right now."
