The Middlesex London Health Unit confirmed 20 new COVID-19 cases on Monday.
While it is a decrease from 30 on Sunday and 26 on Saturday, it does mark the fifth straight day the number of daily infections has reached or surpassed the 20 mark. There have only been nine days so far this month when cases were below that number.
Since the start of the pandemic there has been a total of 6,613 cases.
The number of screened variant positive cases went up by six to 52 since Sunday.
There has not been a COVID-19 related death in the region since March 8, leaving the death toll at 185.
There were 15 more recoveries reported over the past 24 hours for a total of 6,244 resolved cases. Currently, there are 184 active cases in the city and county.
Outbreaks remain at four local long-term care and retirement homes, and one Lucan elementary school. The Thames Valley district school board reported new COVID-19 cases at two schools late Monday. Prince Charles Public School and North Meadows Public School in Strathroy each have a confirmed case of the virus. There are currently 19 active infections in 17 Thames Valley schools.
The London Health Sciences Centre is still dealing with an outbreak on a medicine unit at University Hospital. To date, there has been six patients and fewer than five staff members test positive. There are no deaths linked to the outbreak.
Vaccination bookings for seniors aged 75 to 79 opened in the region on Monday. The demand was so high, the system became overwhelmed and crashed for roughly an hour. It has since been fixed. Public health officials are urging anyone trying to schedule an appointment to receive the shot to be patient. Appointments can be booked online at www.covidvaccinelm.ca or by calling 226-289-3560.
Daily cases were up in Elgin and Oxford counties as the health unit lumped the weekend's cases in with Monday's. Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for the two counties, reported 28 new infections for a total case count of 2,699. The health unit announced on Friday it would no longer update daily case numbers on Saturdays and Sundays in order to free up staff for other tasks. The death toll is unchanged at 67 with no additional deaths reported since February 20. Arches Transitional Bed Program Woodstock is the only seniors' facility with an active case. There are two Woodstock elementary schools dealing with outbreaks - St. Patrick’s Catholic and St. Michael’s Catholic. Both schools are closed and students are learning remotely for the time being. The health unit said the total number of resolved cases is 2,557, leaving 75 known active cases in the two counties.
Provincially, the number of new cases was just below 1,700.
Public health officials logged 1,699 new infections across the province Monday, down from 1,791 on Sunday, and 1,829 on Saturday.
Regions with the most new cases Monday were Toronto with 500, Peel with 318, York Region with 155, and Hamilton with 114.
According to the province’s daily epidemiologic summary, Ontario currently has a total of 1,340 cases of the U.K. variant, known as B.1.1.7, up 53 since the previous day. There are 48 cases of the South African variant, B.1.351, and 36 cases of the Brazil variant, P.1.
The province’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 330,573.
Three deaths were reported over the past 24 hours, to increase the province’s death toll to 7,244.
At hospitals in Ontario, there are 813 patients with COVID-19. Of those, 298 are in intensive care and 186 are on ventilators.
The number of resolved cases rose to 308,578. There are currently 14,751 known active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, 31,089 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s current positivity rate has risen to 5.4 per cent, the highest it has been since January 26 when it hit 5.9 per cent.
The province has administered 1,553,040 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine since Sunday night. Nearly 300,000 people in Ontario have received their second dose of the vaccine to be considered fully inoculated.
