The London region saw a combined 20 new COVID-19 cases and no additional deaths over the past three days.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported eight new infections on Monday, seven 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. It has now been ten straight days since daily case numbers were in the double digits.
The area’s total case count stands at 12,640 since the pandemic began.
There has not been a COVID-19 related death locally since June 26, leaving the death toll unchanged at 226.
Resolved cases in the city and county are up to 12,359. Currently, there are 55 active cases in the region.
There were two more cases involving variants of concern identified in the region since Friday, for a total of 3,503. The Alpha B.1.1.7 variant, which originated in the U.K., now accounts for 3,363 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 41 cases of the B.1.617 variant and sublineages of that strain that originated in India. There are 199 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 fewer than five staff members who are infected with the virus.
People still in need of either their first or second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine will be able to get the shot without an appointment this week. The health unit is hosting the pop-up, walk-in clinics for anyone 12 or older. The first will be held at Lord Elgin Public School on Victoria Drive on Tuesday, the second will run Wednesday at White Oaks Public School on Bradley Avenue. Both clinics will operate from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Middlesex London Paramedic Service will also hold a pop-up clinic for adults 18 and older on Tuesday at the North Middlesex District Community Centre in Parkhill.
The number of new cases in Elgin and Oxford counties was nine 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 3,907. There were no additional deaths recorded over the past three 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 3,811, leaving 13 known active cases. As of Sunday, 75.5 per cent of all people in the two counties 12 and older have received at least one dose of the vaccine, 43.4 per cent have been given both shots.
Provincially, daily cases continued their downward trend, hitting a single-day low not seen since early-September.
Public health officials reported 114 infections on Monday. That is down from 166 on Sunday and 179 on Saturday. The last time the daily caseload was as low as it was on Monday was on September 1 when 112 new cases were reported.
Regions with the most new cases over the past 24 hours were Grey Bruce with 18, Waterloo with 15, and Toronto with 10.
According to the province’s daily epidemiologic summary, Ontario identified 14 cases of the B.1.1.7. variant, or Alpha as it is now known, since the previous day for a total of 144,714. There were no additional cases of the P.1 variant, Gamma, leaving the total unchanged at 4,818, and the number of new cases of the B.1.351 variant, Beta, was also unchanged for a total of 1,440. There were four more cases identified as the B.1.617 (Delta) variant, originally found in India increasing the total to 2,711.
The province’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 547,263.
There were no additional COVID-19 related deaths reported over the past 24 hours, to leave the province’s death toll at 9,251. This is the second time since last Wednesday there have been no deaths linked to the virus reported in Ontario.
At hospitals in Ontario, there are 142 patients with COVID-19. That is up 12 from the previous day. The total number of patients in the intensive care unit is down by two to 204 and the number of patients on ventilators is down by nine to 123. 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 96 to 536,402. There are currently 1,610 known active cases of the virus in Ontario, down from 1,967 a week ago.
In the last 24 hour period, 15,933 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s current positivity rate sits at 0.9 per cent.
The province has administered 17,119,624 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, as of Sunday night, that includes 121,653 doses administered over the past 24 hours. There have been 6.9 million people in Ontario who have received their second dose of the vaccine to be considered fully inoculated.
