The number of London hospital workers contracting COVID-19 is beginning to rise again.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) confirmed on Thursday 179 staffers have tested positive for the virus. That is an increase of 19 since Wednesday and a jump of 43 compared to the same day last week.
Despite the rise in employee sickness, the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations at the LHSC has gone down by one to 50 inpatients. Of the 50 people currently in hospital, there are 20 being treated for COVID-19 and 30 being treated for other ailments but who have also tested positive for the virus.
COVID-19 admissions to the intensive care unit also dropped over the past 24 hours. The LHSC reported seven in the ICU on Thursday, down one from the previous day. There are five or fewer COVID-19 patients in the care of Children’s Hospital.
A day after recording its highest single-day death toll of the pandemic, the health unit said there were no additional deaths linked to the virus on Thursday. On Wednesday, eight deaths were reported, the most ever recorded in one day in the city and county since the pandemic began. There have been 49 COVID-19 deaths locally in February, surpassing last month’s 46 deaths to become the region’s second deadliest of the pandemic. The only other month with more deaths was January 2021 when there were 71. The total death toll since March 2020 stands at 349.
The health unit logged 92 new cases on Thursday. However, daily infection tallies aren’t as meaningful since the provincial government limited who can receive a free PCR test at the end of December. The total number of cases locally since March of 2020 is now 31,513 according to the health unit.
The number of resolved cases is up to 30,403. Currently, there are 761 known active cases in the region, down 37 from the previous day.
Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for Elgin and Oxford counties, no longer updates its COVID-19 cases dashboard on Thursdays. Its next update will be released on Friday.
Provincially, there was a drop in hospitalizations and ICU admissions.
The latest figures released by the province on Thursday show there are 1,066 people with COVID-19 admitted to hospitals in Ontario. That is down 40 since Wednesday. Of the COVID-19 positive people in hospital, roughly 49 per cent were admitted because of the virus, while around 51 per cent were initially brought in for some other reason and tested positive for COVID-19.
There are 302 people in intensive care units across the province, down 17 from Wednesday. Seventy-four per cent of the 302 patients in ICU are there because of the virus.
Public health officials said there were 2,404 new cases in Ontario on Thursday. Public health officials cautioned those numbers are considered an underestimate of the spread of the virus though, as eligibility for free PCR tests in Ontario have been extremely limited.
The province’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 1,093,930.
Forty-one additional deaths related to the virus were reported on Thursday, to bring the death toll up to 12,347. The province said all of the latest deaths occurred over the past 30 days.
The number of resolved cases rose by 2,604 to 1,063,134.
In the last 24 hour period, 21,449 tests COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s positivity rate is now 9.7 per cent, down from 11 per cent a week ago.
The province has administered 31,588,850 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, as of Wednesday night. Nearly 93 per cent of Ontarians 12 and older have received one dose of the vaccine, while 90.4 per cent have been given a second dose. More than 6.9 million booster shots have been administered.
