The number of COVID-19 related deaths in the London region so far this month climbed to 15 on Wednesday.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported a woman in her 40s is the latest person to succumb to the virus. The woman was not associated with a long-term care or retirement home. The health unit did not disclose whether the woman had any underlying medical issues. Her death is the third to be reported in the past three days and brings the death toll in London and Middlesex County to 215.
The region's COVID-19 caseload rose on Wednesday with 62 new infections logged. That is up from 43 on Tuesday and 26 on Monday. However, there hasn't been a triple-digit increase in cases in the past ten days, indicating spread could be slowing down locally.
Since the pandemic began, there has been a total of 11,729 cases in the city and county.
Hospitalizations in the area continue to decline with 49 COVID-19 patients admitted to the London Health Sciences Centre, 22 fewer than this time last week. There are 23 COVID-19 patients listed in intensive care. Of the 49 in hospital with the virus, 27 were transferred to London from overwhelmed hospitals in other regions of the province – nine in acute care and 18 in intensive care.
There were 25 more cases involving variants of concern in London and Middlesex County, for a total of 2,625. Of those, 2,572 have been identified as the B.1.1.7 from the U.K., 27 are the P.1. variant from Brazil, and one is the new B.1.617 strain from India. The health unit also noted 327 cases have tested positive for a mutation.
There are active outbreaks at four area seniors’ facilities and one local daycare centre.
Resolved cases are up by 90 for a total of 10,910. There are currently 604 active cases in the region.
Southwestern Public Health recorded 14 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday. That is up from seven new infections the previous day. The latest cases puts Elgin and Oxford counties’ total up to 3,689. There were no additional COVID-19 related deaths reported in the region, leaving the death toll at 79. Resolved cases rose to 3,508. There are now 102 active cases locally. Outbreaks remain at Tillsonburg District Memorial Hospital and Caressant Care Nursing Home in Woodstock. There is one death associated with each of the two outbreaks.
Ontario marked its second straight day below 2,000 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday.
A total of 1,588 new infections were confirmed over the past 24 hours, down from Tuesday’s 1,616 cases. The latest case count is the province's lowest to be reported in a single-day since March 24.
Regions with the highest new number of infections continue to be Toronto with 524 and Peel with 335. That is followed by Ottawa with 105 and York Region with 94.
Ontario’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 514,690.
According to public health officials, there were 19 additional deaths related to the virus on Wednesday. The official death toll now sits at 8,525.
The daily epidemiologic summary indicates Ontario found 1,803 more lab confirmed cases over the past 24 hours of the B.1.1.7. variant. There are now a total of 112,759 cases of that strain, which was first discovered in the U.K. Another 28 cases of the P.1. variant has been confirmed for a total of 2,059 and there were two more cases of the B.1.351 variant for a total of 683 in Ontario. The province does not currently list how many cases involving the B.1.617 variant, originally found in India, have been identified in Ontario.
Hospitalizations in the province have gone down with 1,401 COVID-19 positive patients admitted. That’s a drop of 83 patients from the previous day. Of those in hospital, there are 735 in intensive care and 539 on ventilators. Hospitalizations from the virus across the province have been steadily decreasing since the start of the month.
Resolved cases across the province are up to 482,749. That leaves 23,416 known active cases of the virus in Ontario, down from 29,962 a week ago.
In the last 24 hour period, more than 38,400 COVID-19 tests were processed, up from 22,915 on Tuesday. Ontario’s positivity rate has dropped to 5.2 per cent from 7.6 per cent.
The province has administered 7,431,638 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as of Tuesday night. A total of 456,784 people in Ontario have received their second dose of the vaccine and are considered fully inoculated.
