A man in his 30s has become the London-area's second COVID-19 death of the month.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported the death of the man, who was not associated with an assisted living facility, on Friday. The health unit did not specify whether the deceased individual had any underlying health conditions. A man in his 80s who lived in long-term care is the only other person in the region to succumb to the virus so far this month. His death was reported on Wednesday.
The total death toll since the start of the pandemic now stands at 177.
The region logged 31 new infections on Friday, an increase from just 19 the day before. It is the second day this week the daily case count has been over 30. The total number of local cases is now 5,808.
Ten more people recovered from the virus to increase the region's resolved cases to 3,859. The area currently has 1,772 known active cases.
Chartwell Parkhill has been added to the list of local long-term care and retirement homes dealing with outbreaks of COVID-19. Seven other facilities are on the list.
The London Health Sciences Centre has 16 inpatients in its care with COVID-19, six of whom are in the intensive care unit. There are no outbreaks at either University Hospital or Victoria Hospital for the first time since November 10. The last outbreak in the adult emergency department at University Hospital was declared over on Thursday.
The Thames Valley District school board has seen a total of four COVID-19 cases this week. No other area school board is reporting active cases. Students returned to in-person learning for the first time since the winter break earlier this week.
Twenty-one new cases were reported Friday in Elgin and Oxford counties. Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for the two, said the latest cases bring the total case count up to 2,357. The death toll is uncharged at 61 with no additional deaths reported over the past 24 hours. There are eight area long-term care or retirement homes with confirmed cases of the virus. Caressant Care Retirement Home Woodstock is seeing the most spread with another 15 cases identified since Thursday. There are now 49 residents and 16 staff members who have tested positive since the outbreak was declared January 21. One death is linked to the outbreak.
Resolved cases have risen to 2,173, leaving 123 known active cases in the two counties.
Provincially, the number of new cases was above the 1,500 mark on Friday.
Public health officials logged 1,670 new infections across the province, up from 1,563 on Thursday. However, Friday's case count included 125 infections missed earlier in the week when Toronto Public Health migrated to the provincial reporting system.
Health Minister Christine Elliott noted that has caused an "overestimation" in Friday's numbers.
Regions with the highest case counts were Toronto with 667, Peel with 317, York Region with 125, and Halton with 100.
The province’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 275,330.
Forty-five deaths were reported over the past 24 hours, fourteen of which were in long-term care homes. The province’s death toll is now 6,438.
At hospitals in Ontario, there are 1,043 patients with COVID-19. Of those, 325 are in intensive care and 225 are on ventilators.
The number of resolved cases rose to 253,170. There are currently 15,722 known active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, 62,710 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s current positivity rate is 2.5 per cent, the lowest it has been since October 22 of last year.
The province has administered 362,749 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as of 8 p.m. Thursday. A total of 87,831 people in Ontario have received their second dose of the vaccine and are considered fully inoculated.
