A 95-year-old woman has become the fifth person to die from COVID-19 in the London-area in less than a month.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported the woman's death on Thursday and said she had no link to a long-term care or retirement facility. Her death increases the region's death toll to 62 since the start of the pandemic.
Between mid-June and the start of October, the city and county reported zero additional COVID-19 related deaths. That changed on October 14 when an infected 91-year-old man died at a local long-term care home. Since then, a 71-year-old man and a 51-year-old woman with no connection to long-term care or retirement homes and a 71-year-old man who lived in long-term care have died from the virus.
The latest death comes on the same day four new COVID-19 cases were reported in London and Middlesex. That is down from 13 infections on Wednesday. The new cases bring the region's total case count to 1,171.
Ten more people recovered from the virus over the last 24 hours to increase the number of resolved cases to 1,057.
Currently, there are 52 active cases in the area.
Southwestern Public Health reported two more COVID-19 cases on Thursday. The health unit for Elgin and Oxford counties said the latest infections bring the total case count to 364. Of those, 313 have been resolved and there have been five deaths.
Active cases in the counties sit at 46. With fears that number could go up, the region's Medical Officer of Health is urging those in the region not to attend a so-called "freedom march" planned in Aylmer this Saturday.
"At a stage in the pandemic where cases are not only rising provincially, but rising locally, large gatherings where social distancing is not maintained are not safe," said Dr. Joyce Lock. "Ontario’s Emergency Orders indicate that outdoor gatherings should be of no more than 25 people. If an outbreak were to occur in a group larger than this, contact tracing and containment of the virus becomes virtually impossible and the significant consequences of ill health will be felt across the entire community."
This is the second march in Aylmer by those against COVID-19 health restrictions. The first one held in the town last month drew roughly 200 people who did not wear face coverings or practice physical distancing.
Provincially, daily infections were up again to nearly 1,000.
Public Health officials said there were 998 new cases in Ontario, up from 987 on Wednesday. The cases bring the province's total number of cases since the start of the pandemic to 80,690.
COVID-19 hotspots continue to be Toronto with 350 new infections, Peel Region with 269, and York Region with 71.
Thirteen more people died from the virus over the past 24 hours to increase the death toll to 3,195.
The number of resolved cases rose to 69,137 with 948 recoveries reported.
There are currently 381 COVID-19 infected patients in hospitals across the province, including 81 in the intensive care unit and 48 relying on ventilators to breathe.
In the last 24 hour period, the number of COVID-19 tests processed was up to nearly 35,800.
