Public health officials in London and Middlesex County are reporting the region's lowest single-day COVID-19 case count in four and a half weeks.
The Middlesex London Health Unit confirmed just two new infections on Wednesday. That is down from eight on Tuesday and three on Monday. The last time the region logged so few cases of the virus in one day was on June 26 when there were two new infections. The local total number of cases since the pandemic began is now 12,754.
Resolved cases are up by three for a total of 12,476. Active cases in the area fell back below 50 after a one day increase to currently sit at 49.
There were no additional COVID-19 related deaths locally on Wednesday, leaving the death toll unchanged at 229.
Hospitalizations in the area held steady with eight COVID-19 patients in the care of the London Health Sciences Centre. Of those, fewer than five are listed in intensive care. There are also fewer than five hospital employees who have tested positive for the virus. An outbreak continues on Victoria Hospital’s adult inpatient mental health unit. Fewer than five cases are linked to the outbreak.
There were 23 more cases involving variants of concern in London and Middlesex County, for a total of 3,592. Of those, 3,379 have been identified as the B.1.1.7 (Alpha) strain from the U.K., 116 are the P.1. (Gamma) variant from Brazil, 91 are the B.1.617 (Delta) strain from India, and there are two cases of the B.1.351 (Beta) variant from South Africa. The health unit also noted a total of 190 cases have tested positive for a mutation.
Southwestern Public Health reported two more COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, increasing the local case count since the pandemic began to 3,939. The death toll was unchanged at 84 with no additional deaths recorded since July 14. Resolved cases rose to 3,840. There are now 15 active cases in the two counties.
For the first time in three days, Ontario reported more than 150 new COVID-19 cases.
A total of 158 new infections were confirmed on Wednesday. That is up from Tuesday's 127 new cases and Monday's 119.
Regions with the highest number of new infections over the past 24 hours were Toronto with 25, York Region with 19, Waterloo Region with 16, and Hamilton with 15.
Ontario’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 549,734.
According to public health officials, there were four additional deaths related to the virus on Wednesday. The official death toll now stands at 9,325.
The daily epidemiologic summary indicates Ontario found 62 more lab confirmed cases over the past 24 hours of the B.1.1.7. (Alpha) variant. There are now a total of 145,474 cases of that strain. Another 17 cases of the P.1. (Gamma) variant have been confirmed for a total of 5,159 and the total number of cases of the B.1.351(Beta) variant in Ontario was unchanged at 1,492. Another 123 cases of the B.1.617 (Delta) variant were also identified for a total of 4,044.
Hospitalizations in the province have decreased to 117 COVID-19 positive patients. That’s down by eight patients from the previous day. There are 122 patients in intensive care and 85 on ventilators.
Resolved cases across the province are up 171 to 539,031. That leaves 1,378 known active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, more than 20,500 COVID-19 tests were processed, up from more than 13,600 on Tuesday. Ontario’s positivity rate has dropped from 1 per cent to 0.8 per cent.
The province has administered more than 19.2 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as of Tuesday night. There are more than 8.7 million people in Ontario who have received both doses of the vaccine and are considered fully inoculated.
