The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in the London region held steady on Thursday.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) confirmed it has 35 inpatients with the virus in its care, unchanged from Wednesday. Local COVID-19 hospitalizations have hovered in the mid-30s for the past two weeks, except for a single day spike that saw the number rise above 40 on Tuesday.
Of the 35 people in hospital, there are 16 being treated for COVID-19 and 19 being treated for other ailments but who have also tested positive.
Intensive care unit admissions related to the virus increased to six over the past 24 hours. COVID-19 patients in the care of Children’s Hospital, rose from zero to five or fewer on Thursday, that includes five or fewer children listed in paediatric critical care.
The hospital network said it currently has 77 infected staffers, the same as was reported on Wednesday. A week ago there were 128 employees who had tested positive.
Two additional outbreaks were declared at University Hospital. The north-end facility now has ongoing outbreaks on U7-cardiology, U6 CVT, and on U7-clinical neurosciences,
The Middlesex London Health Unit recorded 30 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, down from 57 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 37,997, according to the health unit.
There were no additional deaths linked to the virus recorded, leaving the death toll locally at 391.
The number of resolved cases is up to 37,236. Currently, there are 370 known active cases in the region, down from 399 a week ago.
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, there was a drop in COVID-19 hospitalizations.
A total of 1,005 COVID positive people were admitted to Ontario hospitals on Thursday, down 77 over the previous day. It is the first day this week hospitalizations from the virus have decreased. At this time last week there were 1,207 hospitalizations.
The provincial breakdown of hospitalization numbers reported on Thursday shows 42 per cent of those admitted were because of COVID-19 and 58 per cent are being treated for other reasons but also have tested positive for COVID-19.
There are 154 people with COVID-19 in intensive care units across the province, a decrease of six since Wednesday, according to the latest figures released by the province.
Public health officials said there were 1,217 new cases in Ontario on Thursday. Public health officials have cautioned that daily case 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 1,298,778.
Twenty additional deaths related to the virus were reported on Thursday, to bring the death toll up to 13,195. The province said all of the latest deaths occurred within the last month.
The number of resolved cases rose by 1,748 to 1,273,085.
In the last 24 hour period, 13,542 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s positivity rate is now 8.4 per cent, down from 9.6 per cent a week ago.
The province has administered 33,284,045 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, as of Wednesday night. Provincial data shows 93.1 per cent of Ontarians 12 and older have received one dose of the vaccine, while 91.3 per cent have been given a second dose. More than 7.3 million first booster shots have been administered.
Read original story from London Ontario – BlackburnNews.com