The number of new COVID-19 cases reported in the London region daily continues to decline.
The Middlesex London Health Unit logged 17 new infections on Tuesday. That is the same number of infections estimated by the region's medical officer of health the previous day and down from last week when daily cases ranged from 19 to 44 a day.
Exact figures were not released by the health unit on Monday as it transitioned from an internal case and contact management tool to the province's reporting system.
The region's total number of positive cases to date stands at 5,722.
There were zero additional COVID-19 deaths reported the past two days. That leaves the death toll at 175.
Currently, there are 1,720 known active cases in London and Middlesex County.
The Thames Valley District school board reported a case of COVID-19 at Central Public School in Woodstock. At this point, the infection is the board's only active case. Close contacts of the infected person are being notified by public health officials. Elementary students in London, Middlesex, Elgin, and Oxford all returned to in-person learning on Monday, their first day back since the winter break.
Outbreaks remain at nine local long-term care and retirement homes. The outbreak at Glendale Crossing was declared over on Monday.
The London Health Sciences Centre has just one ongoing outbreak. It is in the adult emergency department at University Hospital and has seen ten staff members and zero patients infected. The hospital has a total of 19 inpatients with COVID-19 in its care, nine listed in the intensive care unit.
In Elgin and Oxford, there were 13 new COVID-19 infections recorded on Tuesday. Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for the two counties, said the latest cases bring the total case count to 2,318. There has not been a COVID-19 related death reported in the region since Saturday, leaving the death toll unchanged at 57. There are eight area long-term care or retirement homes dealing with cases of the virus. Cases among residents at Caressant Care Retirement Home Woodstock have climbed to 40, with two more positive infections confirmed since Monday. Ten employees have also contracted the virus since the outbreak was declared January 21.
With resolved cases now sitting at 2,109, there are 153 active cases in the two counties.
The number of new COVID-19 cases reported in Ontario has dropped significantly, but it is being attributed to a data issue.
Public health officials logged 745 new infections across the province on Tuesday, down from 1,969 the day before.
The dramatic one day case drop is because of Toronto Public Health reporting a negative number of new infections as it continues its migration to the province's data tracking system. Figures from other health unit jurisdictions making the same move to the province's tracking system may also be somewhat off, public health officials noted. They did not specify which other regions may also have contributed to Tuesday's underestimation of cases.
Regions with the highest case counts were Peel with 334, York Region with 124, and Niagara with 65.
There have been 109 cases of the more contagious U.K. variant, known as B.1.1.7, found in the province. Ontario has only had one case to date of the South African variant, known as B.1.351.
The province's total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 270,925.
Fourteen deaths were reported over the past 24 hours, four of which were in long-term care homes. The province’s death toll is now 6,238.
At hospitals in Ontario, there are 1,192 patients with COVID-19. Of those, 341 are in intensive care and 253 are on ventilators.
The number of resolved cases rose to 247,236. There are currently 17,451 known active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, only 28,552 COVID-19 tests were processed, down from 30,359 the previous day. Ontario's current positivity rate is 4.6 per cent.
The province has administered 344,615 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as of 8 p.m. Monday. A total of 72,057 people in Ontario have received their second dose of the vaccine and are considered fully inoculated.
