Zero COVID-19 deaths, fewer hospitalizations in London region

The Middlesex London Health Unit recorded no additional COVID-19 deaths for the first time in eight days on Monday.

Prior to this, there had been at least one death reported each day since January 31. Fifteen people have succumbed to the virus this month alone, to bring the local death toll up to 315.

Public health officials also reported 367 new infections since Friday.

There were 105 new cases recorded on Monday, 93 new cases on Sunday, and 169 new cases on Saturday. However, public health officials caution that single-day case numbers are an underestimate of community spread due to eligibility changes that limit who can receive a test.

The area’s total case count stands at 30,163 since the pandemic began.

Resolved cases are up by 448 to 28,257. The number of active cases locally went down by 79 since Friday to 1,591 on Monday.

The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) said Monday it has 119 inpatients with COVID-19, a decrease of 19 over the previous 72 hours. According to the LHSC, 76 of its COVID positive inpatients are being treated for the virus, while the remaining 43 are being treated for other ailments but have tested positive for COVID.

The intensive care unit has 25 inpatients with COVID-19, down one since Friday. ICU admissions have been hovering in the low to mid 20s for the past four weeks.

There are 147 hospital workers who have tested positive for COVID-19, down from 169 on Friday. Employee cases at the LHSC have been falling since hitting a record high of 512 cases on January 12.

Southwestern Public Health, the health unit that covers Elgin and Oxford counties, reported 139 new cases since Friday. The latest cases bring the two counties total case count to 10,583. There was one additional death recorded, bringing the death toll to 143. The health unit said the total number of resolved cases in the area is 9,919, leaving 521 known active cases.

Provincially, the number of people in intensive care in Ontario was unchanged on Monday.

There are currently 2,155 people with the virus in hospital, down 75 since Sunday. However, Intensive care unit (ICU) admissions held at 583. The figures could be higher than reported as not all hospitals release current numbers over the weekend, Health Minister Christine Elliott reminded.

Ontario logged 2,088 new infections over the past 24 hours. But single-day case counts are considered to be an underestimation of community spread as the Ford government restricted eligibility for publicly-funded COVID-19 tests at the end of December. The latest cases put Ontario’s total case count since the start of the pandemic to 1,056,149.

Public health officials confirmed 11 additional COVID-19 deaths on Monday that occurred over the past nine days. The provincial death toll since the pandemic began nearly two years ago now stands at 11,836.

The number of resolved cases are up by 3,556 to 1,010,878.

In the last 24 hour period, 12,880 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s positivity rate is now 14.2 per cent, down slightly from 14.7 per cent at this time last week.

There have been 31,025,150 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine administered in Ontario as of Sunday night. Just over 92 per cent of Ontarians 12 and older have received one dose of the vaccine, while 89.5 per cent have been given their second dose. To date, more than 6.6 million Ontarians have received a booster shot.

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