COVID-19 infections among London hospital workers on the rise

The number of London hospital workers who have become infected with COVID-19 has once again climbed above 100.

The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) said Thursday that it has 107 staffers with the virus, an increase of 17 since Monday. At this time last week, there were 102 hospital employees who had tested positive for the virus.

The increase comes a day after the Ontario Science Table advised that the province is entering a summer wave of the virus. It is being driven by the highly infectious BA.5 Omicron subvariant, which is more immune-evasive. That means people who have recently had COVID can catch it again sooner.

Hospitalizations due to the virus in London went up by one since Monday to 31. Of those hospitalized, there are 17 being treated for COVID-19 and 14 being treated for other ailments but have also tested positive.

There are currently five or fewer COVID infected patients listed in the intensive care unit, unchanged from Monday. At Children’s Hospital, there have not been any patients with the virus in two weeks.

The Middlesex London Health Unit has logged 137 new cases since last reporting on Monday. The health unit now only updates its COVID-19 dashboard twice a week and 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 39,018, according to the health unit.

There have been zero additional deaths since last week, leaving the local death toll at 407. The number of resolved cases is up to 38,258. Currently, there are 353 known active cases in the region, up from 252 a week ago.

Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for Elgin and Oxford counties, reported 62 more COVID-19 cases this week, increasing the local case count since the pandemic began to 14,171. There were no additional deaths recorded, leaving the death toll at 169. Resolved cases rose to 13,907 and there are now 95 known active cases in the two counties.

Read original story from London Ontario – BlackburnNews.com