For the third time this week, the Middlesex London Health Unit has recorded a single-day COVID-19 case jump of 30.
The 30 new infections were logged on Friday and are an increase from the 29 new cases Thursday, 23 cases Wednesday, and 13 cases Tuesday. The region previously recorded 30 new infections on both Monday and Sunday.
Friday's new cases mark London and Middlesex County's 16th straight day of double-digit increases.
The city and county’s total caseload since the pandemic began now sits at 13,282.
No additional deaths were recorded Friday, leaving the local death toll at 233. There have only been two people who have died locally after contracting the virus this month - neither one was vaccinated.
The number of resolved cases rose by 34 to 12,816. The number of known active cases in the region remains higher than it has been in several months with 233.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) has 11 COVID-19 inpatients in its care, unchanged from Thursday. Of those, five or fewer are listed in intensive care. Currently, there are fewer than five hospital staff who have tested positive for the virus.
The number of cases involving variants of concern identified in the area has gone up by 44 to 3,838. There have been 3,385 cases involving the B.1.1.7 (Alpha) variant that originated in the U.K., 124 cases of the P.1 (Gamma) variant from Brazil, two cases of the B.1.351 (Beta) variant from South Africa, and 323 cases of the B.1.617 (Delta) variant, originally found in India.
Over 86 per cent of the 575 new COVID-19 cases reported since July 16 were among people who were not yet fully vaccinated. The unvaccinated and those who have only received one dose accounted for 95.2 per cent of all hospitalizations locally over the last six weeks.
In a continued effort to make the vaccine more accessible to everyone, the health unit has announced it will be hosting a pop-up, walk-in clinic at CF Masonville Place. The clinic will be located near the entrance to SilverCity inside of an empty retail space. It will operate from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. from August 30 to September 3 and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. September 4 and 5.
"Through our pop-up vaccination clinics, we want to make it as easy as possible for people to get vaccinated,” Maureen MacCormick, the health unit's director of healthy living and chief of operations of vaccination clinics, said in a statement. “Our goal has been, and remains, to get vaccine into as many arms as we can, as efficiently as we can. The more opportunities to get vaccinated that we bring to neighbourhoods across our community, the better the protection all of us will have from this virus.”
A full list of pop-up vaccination clinics in London and Middlesex County can be found by clicking here.
In Elgin and Oxford counties, there were six new COVID-19 cases reported Friday, up from three the previous day. Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for the region, said that brings the local total number of cases to 4,066 with 3,954 resolved. The death toll was unchanged at 84. Currently, there are 28 active cases in the two counties. As of Thursday, 81.6 per cent of area residents aged 12 and older have had one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 74.3 per cent have received both doses.
On Friday, Ontario saw its largest single-day spike in new COVID-19 cases since early June.
Public health officials confirmed 781 new infections over the past 24 hours, up from 678 on Thursday. There were 660 cases logged on Wednesday, 486 recorded on Tuesday, and 639 reported on Monday.
The last time the province recorded a daily case count higher than Friday’s was on June 4 when 914 infections were logged.
The Ministry of Health did note, 22 of the reported cases over the past 24 hours were the result of a data cleanup and were not current.
Toronto had the province’s highest daily number of cases on Friday with 185, followed by Peel Region with 96, and York Region with 93.
Preliminary data shows of the 781 new cases reported in Ontario, 485 were not vaccinated, 83 had received one dose, and 147 were fully vaccinated. There were 66 infected individuals whose vaccination status was not known.
Ontario’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now stands at 562,756.
There have been 80 new cases of the variant originating from the U.K. in Ontario. That brings the province’s total number of B.1.1.7. (Alpha) cases to 146,105. Cases of the B.1.351 (Beta) variant are unchanged, leaving the total at 1,500 and P.1 (Gamma) variants were up by one for a total of 5,222. The number of new cases involving the B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant is up by 486 for a total of 8,732.
There were 17 additional deaths reported to bring the provincial death toll up to 9,489. However, 14 of those deaths occurred more than two months ago and were included in Friday's numbers as part of a data cleanup, according to the ministry.
Hospitals in Ontario have 306 COVID-19 positive patients admitted to general wards. There are 158 patients in intensive care and 128 are on ventilators. Of those on the general wards, 140 were unvaccinated, 16 were partially vaccinated, and 27 were fully vaccinated. Only nine of those in ICU were fully vaccinated.
The number of resolved cases are up to 625 to 547,823. There are currently 5,444 active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, 30,063 COVID-19 tests were processed, up from 27,815 the previous day. Ontario’s positivity rate has risen to 3 per cent.
To date, the province has administered more than 20.6 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, with more than 9.8 million people having received both shots required to be fully inoculated.
On Friday, Health Canada authorized the use of the Moderna vaccine in children between the ages of 12 and 17. Until now, only people 18 and older in Canada were eligible to receive the Moderna mRNA vaccine. Health officials were given the go ahead to administer the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to kids 12 and older in May.
