The number of new cases of COVID-19 in the London-area rose to near 30 on Wednesday.
The Middlesex London Health Unit logged 29 new infections over the past 24 hours, up from 17 on Tuesday and 12 on Monday. Wednesday’s numbers are the highest the area has seen in nearly a week. The total number of cases locally since the pandemic began sits at 13,863.
There were no additional COVID-19 related deaths in the region, leaving the death toll unchanged at 238.
Resolved cases went up by 22 to 13,429, Active cases in the city and county rose to 196, from 189 the previous day.
Hospitalizations in the area are unchanged with nine COVID-19 patients in the care of the London Health Sciences Centre. Of those, five or fewer are listed in intensive care and none are in Children’s Hospital. There are also five or fewer hospital employees who have tested positive for the virus.
A second seniors’ facility in the region is dealing with an outbreak of the virus. The health unit declared the outbreak at
Oakcrossing Retirement Living on Tuesday. The only other retirement or long-term care facility with an outbreak is Earls Court Village.
Four more COVID-19 cases have been identified at area schools since Tuesday. Public health officials now have a total of 40 active cases at 30 schools. That includes 26 cases at 21 Thames Valley District school board facilities, four cases at two schools in the French-language board, and ten cases at seven London District Catholic school board schools. An outbreak remains at École élémentaire La Pommeraie.
The health unit is advising anyone who attended Paranyde Bar & Grill on Commissioners Road East last weekend to monitor for symptoms of COVID-19. Public health officials confirmed an infectious person attended the bar between 11 p.m. last Friday to 2 a.m. last Saturday. Public health investigators have followed up with the bar’s owner and staff and have thus far been unable to identify close contacts of the infected person. Anyone who was at the bar and begins to show symptoms of COVID-19 are asked to get tested immediately .
There were five more cases involving variants of concern in London and Middlesex County, for a total of 4,224. All of the new cases have been identified as the B.1.617 (Delta) strain for a total of 710. There have been a total of 3,384 cases of the B.1.1.7 (Alpha) strain, 124 cases of the P.1. (Gamma) variant, and two cases of the B.1.351 (Beta) strain in the region since the health unit began tracking variants of the virus.
Of the 888 new cases logged over the past six weeks, 82 per cent are among people who are not fully vaccinated or have not reached full immunity.
Southwestern Public Health reported three more COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, increasing the local case count since the pandemic began to 4,239. The death toll was unchanged at 85 with no additional deaths recorded since August 31. Resolved cases rose to 4,089. There are now 65 active cases in the two counties.
Ontario has recorded its lowest daily COVID-19 case increase in five weeks.
A total of 463 new infections were confirmed on Wednesday. That is down from Tuesday’s 574, Monday’s 610, and Sunday’s 715. The province’s single-day case count has not been as low as it was on Wednesday since August 17 when 348 infections were logged.
The drop in daily case numbers comes on the same day the province’s vaccine certificate program came into effect. As of Wednesday, proof of vaccination is required to enter certain non-essential businesses, such as restaurants, bars, nightclubs, concert venues, gyms, movie theatres, and sporting venues.
Of the latest 463 new cases, 278 were among unvaccinated people, 21 involved partially vaccinated people, 131 were fully vaccinated individuals, and 33 had unknown vaccination status.
Regions with the highest number of new infections over the past 24 hours were Toronto with 93, Ottawa with 54, Windsor-Essex with 48, and Peel Region with 41.
Ontario’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 581,231.
According to public health officials, there were seven additional deaths related to the virus recorded Wednesday. The official death toll now stands at 9,670.
The daily epidemiologic summary indicates one case previously believed to be the B.1.1.7. (Alpha) variant was removed from the count. There are now a total of 146,452 cases of that strain in the province. The number of cases of the P.1. (Gamma) variant and the B.1.351(Beta) variant were unchanged leaving the totals at 5,229 and 1,502. Another 650 cases of the B.1.617 (Delta) variant were also identified for a total of 17,594 .
Hospitalizations in the province have dropped to 299 COVID-19 positive patients. That’s down by 31 patients from the previous day. There are 187 people in intensive care, up by 12 from Tuesday and the number of people on a ventilator is up by seven to 162.
The latest figures from the Ministry of Health shows of the patients with COVID-19 on general hospital wards, 122 were unvaccinated, eight have had one dose, and 28 were fully vaccinated. Of those in the ICU, 111 are not fully vaccinated and nine have received both doses.
Resolved cases across the province are up 783 to 565,710. That leaves 5,851 known active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, 39,092 COVID-19 tests were processed, up from 23,631 the previous day. Ontario’s positivity rate is now 1.8 per cent – the lowest it has been since early August.
The province has administered just over 21.4 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as of Tuesday night. There are more than 10.3 million people in Ontario who have received both doses of the vaccine and are considered fully inoculated.
Read original story from London Ontario – BlackburnNews.com