The daily number of COVID-19 cases reported in the London-area continued to hover around the 20 mark on Wednesday.
The Middlesex-London Health Unit said there were 19 new laboratory confirmed cases of the virus over the past 24 hours. That is down from 22 on Tuesday but up from 11 on Monday. Daily infections have been predominantly in the low-to-high 20s for the last week.
The region's total case count since the start of the pandemic is 6,476.
There has not been any COVID-19 related deaths locally in more than a week, leaving the death toll unchanged at 67.
Outbreaks continue at two local schools - Wilberforce public in Lucan and Bonaventure Meadows in London. Close contacts of the infected are being monitored by the health unit and both schools remain open.
Strathmere Lodge is outbreak free for the first time this month. That leaves five other area long-term care and retirement residences still battling outbreaks.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) said the outbreak at University Hospital on the U4 - Medicine 1 unit has not seen any additional cases. To date, there are fewer than five patient and staff infections with no deaths associated with the outbreak. The LHSC has a total of six staffers who have tested positive for the virus between University Hospital and Victoria Hospital.
The number of people to recover from the virus has risen to 6,134 in London and Middlesex County. There are 157 infections considered to be active in the region.
Southwestern Public Health recorded four new COVID-19 cases and no additional deaths on Wednesday. That puts Elgin and Oxford counties’ total number of cases up to 2,653 and leaves the death toll at 67. Resolved cases rose to 2,513, leaving 73 active cases between the two counties. There is one ongoing outbreak in the region at Arches Transitional Bed Program.
Daily case numbers in Ontario have climbed above 1,500.
According public health officials, 1,508 new infections were confirmed on Wednesday. That is up significantly from 1,074 on Tuesday. The province has logged more than 1,000 daily cases everyday for the past 11 days.
Regions with the highest case counts were Toronto with 542, followed by Peel and York Region with 253 and 107 cases.
The daily epidemiologic summary indicates Ontario had three more lab confirmed cases of the U.K. variant, known as B.1.1.7. for a total of 1,134. There have been no new confirmed cases of the South African variant, known as B.1.351 or the Brazil variant, P.1., leaving the totals unchanged at 47 and 34.
The province’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 321,956.
Fourteen deaths were reported over the past 24 hours. The province’s death toll is now 7,187.
Ontario’s hospitals are currently dealing with 741 patients with COVID-19. Of those, 300 are in intensive care and 190 are on ventilators.
Resolved cases across the province are up to 302,257. That leaves 12,512 known active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, more than 49,100 COVID-19 tests were processed, up from just over 28,500 the previous day. Ontario’s current positivity rate is 3.5 per cent.
The province has administered 1,301,334 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as of Tuesday night. A total of 290,659 people in Ontario have received their second dose of the vaccine and are considered fully inoculated.
