For the past three days, the number of new COVID-19 cases to be logged in London and Middlesex County was in the single-digits.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported six new infections on Monday, five Sunday, and five Saturday. The health unit released three days worth of data on Monday as it no longer reports COVID-19 figures over the weekend. Since June 16, single-day case counts have been bouncing between single-digits and the low teens.
The area’s total case count stands at 12,597 since the pandemic began.
Resolved cases in the city and county are up to 12,312. Currently, there are 59 active cases in the region.
There has not been a COVID-19 related death so far this month, leaving the death toll unchanged at 226.
There was just one more case involving variants of concern identified in the region since Friday, for a total of 3,482. The Alpha B.1.1.7 variant, which originated in the U.K., now accounts for 3,359 of the cases. There are 97 cases of the Gamma P.1. variant from Brazil, two cases identified as the Beta B.1.351 variant from South Africa, and 24 cases of the B.1.617 variant and sublineages of that strain that originated in India. There are 189 cases that have tested positive for a mutation.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) has nine inpatients with COVID-19. Of those in hospital, fewer than five are in the intensive care unit. Currently, there are no staff who are infected with the virus.
The London region hit a significant vaccination milestone on Monday. The health unit announced it has now administered more than 500,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine since the first shot was given at the Western Fair Agriplex last December. More than 100,000 of those doses made it into arms since June 21.
Medical Office of Health Dr. Chris Mackie is urging everyone eligible to push up their second dose vaccine appointment as the number of cases involving the Delta variant rises. According to the health unit, over the past two weeks, 92 per cent of individuals who contracted the virus in the area were unvaccinated, while 8 per cent had only received one dose. There were no cases involving people who were fully vaccinated.
The number of new cases in Elgin and Oxford counties was four on Monday. The number includes infections identified both Saturday and Sunday, as Southwestern Public Health does not update its COVID-19 dashboard on weekends. The latest cases bring the two counties total case count to 3,888. There were no additional deaths recorded over the past two days, leaving the death toll unchanged at 83. There are currently no active institutional outbreaks locally. The health unit said the total number of resolved cases in the area is 3,789, leaving 16 known active cases.
Provincially, the number of new COVID-19 cases fell to its lowest level since early-September.
Public health officials reported 170 infections on Monday. That is down from 213 on Sunday and 209 on Saturday. It is the second time in a week single-day cases have been below 200. The last time the daily case count was as low as it was on Monday was on September 10.
Regions with the most new cases over the past 24 hours were Waterloo with 34, Toronto with 27, and Grey Bruce with 18.
According to the province’s daily epidemiologic summary, Ontario identified 56 cases of the B.1.1.7. variant, or Alpha as it is now known, since the previous day for a total of 143,955. There was one more case of the P.1 variant, Gamma, for a total of 4,632, while the number of new cases of the B.1.351 variant, Beta, was unchanged for a total of 1,415. There were no additional cases identified as the B.1.617 (Delta) variant, originally found in India leaving the total at 2,041.
The province’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 545,973.
One death was reported over the past 24 hours, to increase the province’s death toll to 9,215.
At hospitals in Ontario, there are 155 patients with COVID-19. That is down three from the previous day. The total number of patients in the intensive care unit is down by seven to 228 and the number of patients on ventilators is down by two to 157. ICU numbers include patients who previously tested positive for COVID-19 but have since recovered and remain due to other complications.
The number of resolved cases rose by 223 to 534,791. There are currently 1,967 known active cases of the virus in Ontario, down from 2,506 a week ago.
In the last 24 hour period, 12,949 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s current positivity rate sits at 1.3 per cent.
The province has administered 15,705,866 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, as of Sunday night, that includes 144,795 doses administered over the past 24 hours. There have been 5,687,477 people in Ontario who have received their second dose of the vaccine to be considered fully inoculated.
