Following a one day drop, daily COVID-19 cases in the London region climbed back above 20 on Tuesday.
The Middlesex London Health Unit said there were 22 new infections confirmed over the past 24 hours. On Monday, the daily case count dropped to 11 after four straight days at more than 20. The recent uptick in infections is due to a community outbreak linked to off-campus student parties. Since being declared last Thursday, the total number of cases associated with the outbreak has grown from 22 to 45.
Medical Officer of Health Dr. Chris Mackie said 26 of those cases were contracted through secondary contact.
"So people who didn't attend the main event, but were in contact with people who did," said Mackie.
Since the pandemic began more than a year ago there have been 6,458 cases in the region. The health unit noted, 6,113 of those infections have been resolved and there have been a total of 185 deaths. No additional deaths have been reported in London and Middlesex County since March 8.
Currently, there are 160 known active cases.
An outbreak at Meadow Park Care Centre has been declared over, leaving six seniors' facilities and one unit at University Hospital dealing with outbreaks.
Wilberforce public school in Lucan also has an outbreak of the virus after three confirmed cases were reported there late Monday. The only other school in the region with an outbreak is Bonaventure Meadows public. Davenport public school in Aylmer and South Dorchester public school also reported single cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday.
The health unit confirmed another 11,434 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were administered last week at clinics in London and Mt. Brydges. A second London clinic at North London Optimist Community Centre at 1345 Cheapside St. is expected to open later this week.
In Elgin and Oxford counties, there were more than a dozen new infections on Tuesday. Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for the region, said there were 14 new COVID-19 case over the past 24 hours to bring the total caseload since last March to 2,649. The death toll is unchanged at 67 with no new COVID-19 deaths since February 20. The only seniors' facility with an ongoing case is Arches Transitional Bed Program Woodstock. A single staff infection has been reported there. Resolved cases are up to 2,510 with 72 known active cases in the two counties remaining.
Ontario’s daily case count was back under 1,100, but the positivity rate hit its highest level so far this month.
Public health officials logged 1,074 new infections across the province on Tuesday. That’s down from 1,268 Monday, 1,747 on Sunday, and 1,468 on Saturday.
Toronto had the province's highest daily number of cases over the past 24 hours with 313, that was followed by Peel with 199, and York Region with 101.
Ontario has confirmed 25 more cases of the variant first discovered in the U.K., known as B.1.1.7, for a total of 1,131. There were no new cases of the variant first associated with South Africa, known as B.1.351. or the variant first found in Brazil, known as P.1. That leaves the totals for those variants at 46 and 34.
Ontario total case count since the start of the pandemic now stands at 320,448.
There were 11 additional deaths reported over the past 24 hours. The province death toll is now 7,173.
At hospitals in Ontario, the number of COVID-19 positive patients has risen to 761. Of those, 292 are in intensive care and 194 are on ventilators.
The number of resolved cases rose to 300,769. There are currently 12,506 active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, just over 28,500 COVID -19 tests were processed. That is down from 33,900 the previous day and brings the province positivity rate to 4.5 per cent. This is the first time this month it has risen above 4 per cent.
It comes on the same day the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table stated the province has entered the third wave of the virus. The advisory group attributes the start of the third wave to increased spread of the more transmissible variants of concern, which currently account for half of all new cases.
To date, the province has administered 1,243,132 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, with more than 288,900 people having received both shots required to be fully inoculated.
