The number of London hospital workers who have contracted COVID-19 is nearing 300.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) said it currently has 273 infected staffers, up from 253 on Wednesday and 218 a week ago
COVID-19 hospitalizations in London dipped slightly on Thursday. The LHSC reported it has 37 inpatients with the virus, down one over the past 24 hours. Hospitalizations have been above 30 everyday for the past week.
Of the 37 people currently in hospital, there are 15 being treated for COVID-19 and 22 being treated for other ailments but who have also tested positive.
Intensive care unit admissions related to the virus remained at five or fewer, as did the number of COVID-19 patients in the care of Children’s Hospital.
The Middlesex London Health Unit recorded 135 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, down from 152 on Wednesday. Daily case tallies are believed to be an underestimate of community spread since the provincial government limited eligibility for PCR testing at the end of December. The total number of cases locally since March of 2020 is now 34,785 according to the health unit.
No additional deaths were reported over the past 24 hours, leaving the local death toll at 365. The number of resolved cases is up to 33,417. Currently, there are 1,003 known active cases in the region, up from 800 a week ago. This is the first time since February 18 the number of known active cases has surpassed 1,000 locally.
Fourth dose COVID-19 vaccine appointments became available Thursday morning for people 60 and older and Indigenous peoples and their non-Indigenous household members aged 18 plus. The recommended interval between third and fourth shots is five months, while the minimum interval is three months. The health unit is taking bookings for second boosters at covidvaccinelm.ca.
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, the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations climbed to a high not seen since mid-February.
A total of 1,126 people with COVID-19 were admitted to Ontario hospitals on Thursday, up 57 over the previous day. The last time there were more than 1,100 people with the virus in hospitals across the province was on February 19 when 1,191 people were admitted. At this time last week there were 807 hospitalizations, two weeks ago there were 661.
The provincial breakdown of hospitalization numbers reported on Thursday shows 47 per cent of those admitted were because of COVID-19 and 53 per cent are being treated for other reasons but also have tested positive for COVID-19.
There are 159 people with COVID-19 in intensive care units across the province, a decrease of nine since Wednesday, according to the latest figures released by the province.
Public health officials said there were 4,224 new cases in Ontario on Thursday. Public health officials have cautioned that those numbers are considered an underestimate of the spread of the virus though, as the provincial government continues to restrict who is eligible for a free PCR test.
The province’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 1,184,345.
Sixteen additional deaths related to the virus were reported on Thursday, to bring the death toll up to 12,527. The province said all of the latest deaths occurred over the past 30 days.
The number of resolved cases rose by 2,838 to 1,144,889.
In the last 24 hour period, 21,347 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s positivity rate is now 17.2 per cent, up from 16 per cent a week ago and 13.4 per cent two weeks ago.
The province has administered 32,123,294 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 91 per cent have been given a second dose. More than 7.2 million first booster shots have been administered.
