The London region has started February with another significant jump in the COVID-19 death toll.
The Middlesex London Health Unit recorded five more deaths related to the virus on Tuesday. The latest deaths are among two women in their 60s, a man in his 70s, and two people in their 90s. Two of the five were associated with seniors’ facilities. The deaths reported Tuesday show a continuation to the deadly trend last month that saw 41 people succumb to the virus locally. The total death toll for London and Middlesex since the pandemic began is now 305.
COVID-19 hospitalizations in London were down while admissions to the intensive care unit went up. The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) confirmed it has 149 inpatients with the virus, down six from Monday. Twenty-eight of the 149 patients are listed in intensive care (up two from Monday) and five or fewer are in the care of Children’s Hospital.
LHSC officials specified that of 89 the COVID-19 positive patients are being treated for the virus. The remaining 60 are being treated for other ailments but have also tested positive for COVID-19.
The number of hospital employees who have currently tested positive for COVID-19 is up by eight from Monday to 205. Staff infection numbers at the LHSC have been relatively steady for the last week.
Ninety new COVID-19 infections were logged in the city and county over the past 24 hours, to bring the total case count since March 2020 to 29,274. Daily case tallies have been considered an underestimate of community spread because of limits placed on testing eligibility at the end of last year. Resolved cases are up to 27,177 and there are currently 1,792 active cases locally.
New figures released by the health unit on Tuesday show the region has hit another vaccination milestone. More than 50 per cent of people aged 12 and older have now received their COVID-19 vaccine booster shot. Nearly 93 per cent of people in that same age bracket have had one dose, while 90.5 per cent have received two.
As of Sunday, there have been 1,074,004 doses administered locally since December 2020.
Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for Elgin and Oxford counties, no longer updates its COVID-19 cases dashboard on Tuesdays. It’s next update will be released on Wednesday.
Ontario recorded 63 more COVID-19 deaths and an increase in the number of people with the virus in hospital on Tuesday.
According to public health officials, there are 3,091 COVID-19 positive inpatients being treated in hospitals across the province. That is up 108 since Monday. The provincial breakdown of hospitalization numbers shows roughly 56 per cent were admitted to hospital because of COVID-19. The remaining 44 per cent were admitted for other reasons but tested positive for COVID-19.
As of Tuesday, 15 fewer COVID-19 positive people were in intensive care for a total of 568. Eighty-four per cent of those individuals were admitted because of the virus.
Ontario logged 2,622 new cases over the past 24 hours. The single-day tally has become less relevant since the provincial government restricted eligibility for publicly-funded COVID-19 tests. Ontario’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now stands at 1,035,916.
There were 63 additional deaths reported Tuesday, however, three were removed from the provincial death toll as part of a data clean up. The total death toll from the virus in Ontario now stands at 11,504.
Public health officials confirmed there were 16,380 COVID-19 tests processed over the past 24 hours. The test positivity rate is now 16.2 per cent.
To date, the province has administered 30,707,331 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, with 89.2 per cent of people 12 and older having received both shots required to be fully inoculated. More than 6.4 million people have received a booster shot.
