There was no change in the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in the London region on Thursday.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) confirmed it has 23 inpatients with the virus in its care, the same as was reported on Wednesday. This is the lowest COVID-19 hospitalizations have been locally since the same number of logged on March 23. Prior to this, the number of people in hospital with the virus ranged between the low-30s and low-40s for about a month.
Of the 23 people in hospital, there are 12 being treated for COVID-19 and 11 being treated for other ailments but have also tested positive.
Intensive care unit admissions related to the virus have been at five or fewer for the past week. As of Thursday, there are zero COVID-19 patients in the care of Children’s Hospital. A day earlier there had been five or fewer.
The hospital network said it currently has 82 infected staffers, up seven from Wednesday. A week ago there were 77 employees who had tested positive.
The Middlesex London Health Unit recorded 20 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, down from 53 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 38,235, according to the health unit.
There were no additional deaths linked to the virus recorded, leaving the death toll locally at 392.
The number of resolved cases is up to 37,463. Currently, there are 380 known active cases in the region, up from 370 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, the number of people in the intensive care unit with COVID-19 dropped to a low not seen since last summer.
There are 119 people with COVID-19 in intensive care units across the province, a decrease of eight since Wednesday, according to the latest figures released by the province. This is the lowest number of COVID related ICU admissions in the province since August 16.
A total of 670 COVID positive people were admitted to Ontario hospitals on Thursday, down 52 over the previous day. At this time last week there were 1,005 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.
Public health officials said there were 1,038 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 1,305,101.
Two additional deaths related to the virus were reported on Thursday, to bring the death toll up to 13,267. The province said both of the latest deaths occurred within the last month.
The number of resolved cases rose by 1,230 to 1,282,296.
In the last 24 hour period, 10,783 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s positivity rate is now 7.2 per cent, down from 8.4 per cent a week ago.
The province has administered 33,390,569 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.
