COVID-19 hospitalizations in the London region continued to trend downward on Thursday.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) reported it has 38 inpatients with the virus, a decrease of six over the past 24 hours. Of the 38 people currently in hospital, there are 13 being treated for COVID-19 and 25 being treated for other ailments but who have also tested positive for the virus.
COVID-19 admissions to the intensive care unit remained at five or fewer for a fourth straight day. There are also five or fewer COVID-19 patients in the care of Children’s Hospital.
The number of hospital workers who have tested positive for the virus went up for the third consecutive day. The LHSC said it currently has 154 COVID positive employees, up from 140 on Wednesday.
The Middlesex London Health Unit logged 85 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 32,418 according to the health unit.
The local death toll was unchanged at 353.
The number of resolved cases is up to 31,450. Currently, there are 615 known active cases in the region, the first time this month that number has risen above 600.
Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for Elgin and Oxford counties, does not update its COVID-19 cases dashboard on Thursdays. Its next update will be released on Friday.
Provincially, hospitalizations related to the virus were down on Thursday.
The latest figures released by the province show there are 742 people with COVID-19 admitted to hospitals in Ontario. That is down nine since Wednesday. The provincial breakdown of hospitalization numbers shows 46 per cent of those admitted were because of COVID-19 and 54 per cent are being treated for other reasons but also have tested positive for COVID-19.
There are 244 people in intensive care units across the province, an increase of three from Wednesday.
Public health officials said there were 2,125 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 1,119,564.
Twenty additional deaths related to the virus were reported on Thursday, to bring the death toll up to 12,638. The province said 14 of the latest deaths occurred over the past 30 days and six occurred more than a month ago.
The number of resolved cases rose by 2,361 to 1,090,976.
In the last 24 hour period, 14,695 tests COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s positivity rate is now 11.2 per cent, up from 10.2 per cent a week ago.
The province has administered 31,835,724 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 90.7 per cent have been given a second dose. More than 7 million booster shots have been administered.
