Friday marked the third consecutive day new cases of COVID-19 have been in the 20s in the London region.
The Middlesex London Health Unit logged 27 new infections over the previous 24 hours. Daily cases have been in the double-digits for the past three days with 20 cases confirmed Wednesday and 29 recorded on Thursday.
Two of the new cases reported on Friday were identified as variants. However, which strain has yet to be determined. There are now 24 confirmed positive variant strain cases in the region and four determined to be the variant from the U.K.
Since the start of the pandemic a year ago, the region has had a total of 6,395 COVID-19 cases.
There have been fewer than ten deaths related to the virus reported since the end of January, with no new deaths on Friday. The local death toll remains at 185.
A community outbreak linked to ten off-campus parties by post secondary students was declared on Thursday. Twenty-two people contracted the virus following the gatherings March 2 to 6. Medical Officer of Health Dr. Chris Mackie said Thursday that most, if not all, are Western University students.
Glendale Crossing in London is the latest seniors' facility to report an outbreak. There are now six local long-term care and retirement homes dealing with outbreaks.
The number of cases at area schools has risen each day this week, with ten infections currently active at nine schools. There are three schools with outbreaks - Bonaventure Meadows Public, Sir Arthur Carty, and St. Mark Catholic. All three remain open.
Hospitalizations of people with the virus are up to seven, with the London Health Sciences Centre confirming fewer than five are in the intensive care unit.
With 6,043 infections deemed resolved, there are 167 known active cases in the region.
In Elgin and Oxford counties, daily confirmed cases rose to their highest level in two weeks. Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for the region, said there were 16 new COVID-19 infections recorded Friday. The majority of those cases, ten, were in Aylmer where the provincial police college has been dealing with an outbreak. The region's total caseload now sits at 2,606, with 2,490 resolved and 67 deaths. There has not been a COVID-19 death locally since February 20. Outbreaks remain at three local seniors’ facilities – Maples Retirement Home in Tavistock, Bethany Care Home Norwich, and Arches Transitional Bed Program. Currently, there are 49 active cases in the two counties.
Ontario’s daily case count saw another surge on Friday.
Public health officials confirmed 1,371 new infections across the province over the past 24 hours. That’s up from 1,092 Thursday, 1,316 Wednesday and 1,185 Tuesday. It is the sixth consecutive day daily cases in Ontario have been above the 1,000 mark.
Toronto had the province's highest daily number of cases Friday with 371, that was followed by Peel with 225, York Region with 111, and Hamilton with 109.
Ontario has confirmed 49 more cases of the variant first discovered in the U.K., known as B.1.1.7, for a total of 1,005. There was one new case of the variant first associated with South Africa, known as B.1.351 for a total of 42 and six new cases of the variant first found in Brazil, known as P.1. for a total of 34.
Ontario total case count since the start of the pandemic now stands at 314,891.
There were 18 additional deaths reported over the past 24 hours. The province death toll is now 7,127.
At hospitals in Ontario, there are 676 patients with COVID-19. Of those, 282 are in intensive care and 189 are on ventilators.
The number of resolved cases rose to 296,252. There are currently 11,512 active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, 64,611 COVID-19 tests were processed. The province positivity rate is roughly 2.4 per cent.
To date, the province has administered 1,062,910 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, with 282,748 people having received both shots required to be fully inoculated.
