COVID-19 deaths in the London region went up by two on Friday.
The Middlesex London Health Unit said a man in his 70s and a man in his 80s are the latest to succumb to the virus. The London-area has not recorded two deaths in a single day since May 12.
Neither of the two men were residents of long-term care or retirement facilities. The one death is however linked to the COVID-19 outbreak at University Hospital, public health officials have confirmed.
The north London hospital has been dealing with the outbreak since November 10. It began on two units and has since spread to a total of six. As a result, all medical floors were closed to admissions earlier this week. The latest units affected are the sixth floor cardiovascular surgery unit and the fourth floor multi-organ transplant unit. The outbreak on the ninth floor orthopaedic unit has since been declared over.
The number of infected staff at the hospital has gone up by two since Thursday to 28. There are currently 26 patients with COVID-19 under the care of the London Health Sciences Centre, which operates University Hospital.
The COVID-19 related death toll in London and Middlesex is now 66, with six of those deaths occurring this month.
The region logged 17 additional infections on Friday, bringing the total case count since the start of the pandemic to 1,545.
The number of recoveries outpaced new cases over the last 24 hours with 21 more cases resolved for a total of 1,344.
Currently, there are 135 active cases in the city and county.
In Elgin and Oxford counties, there were 10 new cases of COVID-19 reported. That is up from nine on Thursday and brings the total number of infections to 526. There were no new deaths recorded Friday. The area’s death toll stands at six, according to Southwestern Public Health. A total of 467 cases have been resolved in the two counties, up 12 over the last 24 hours. There are currently 53 active cases in the region.
Ontario recorded its largest single-day jump in COVID-19 cases on Friday.
Public health officials said there were 1,855 new infections across the province, breaking the previous record high of 1,588 recorded last Saturday.
Of the new cases, 1,330 were in the COVID-19 hotspots of Peel (517), Toronto (494), York Region (189), and Hamilton (130).
Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 111,216 COVID-19 cases in Ontario.
Twenty more deaths linked to the virus across the province were reported on Friday. That brings the death toll up to 3,595.
The number of resolved cases rose to 94,366 with 1,451 additional recoveries reported.
There are currently 541 COVID-19 infected patients in hospitals across the province, including 151 in the intensive care unit and 101 on ventilators.
Over the past 24 hours, Ontario processed its highest number of COVID-19 tests since the virus began circulating, with 58,037 tests completed.
The province's positivity rate now stands at 3.7 per cent.
