The number of people with COVID-19 in London hospital continued its steady decline on Thursday.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) confirmed there are 63 inpatients with the virus currently at its facilities. That is down from 71 on Wednesday, 91 from a week ago, and a substantial drop from 149 on February 1. Of the 63 currently in hospital, there are 31 being treated for COVID-19 and 32 being treated for other ailments but who have also tested positive for the virus.
COVID-19 admissions to the intensive care unit also dropped over the past 24 hours. The LHSC reported 12 in the ICU on Thursday, down four from the previous day. There are five or fewer COVID-19 patients in the care of Children’s Hospital.
The number of hospital staff who have contracted the virus has gone up by two over the past 24 hours to 136.
For a second straight day, there were no deaths linked to the virus locally, according to the Middlesex London Health Unit. It is the first time this month the health unit has recorded back-to-back death free days. Until now, February had been shaping up to be among the pandemic’s deadliest with 35 deaths recorded. Last month saw 46 COVID-19 related deaths and was only surpassed by January 2021 when there were 71 deaths linked to the virus in London and Middlesex County. The total death toll since March 2020 stands at 335.
The health unit logged 91 new cases on Thursday. However, daily infection tallies aren’t as meaningful since the provincial government limited who can receive a free PCR test at the end of December. The total number of cases locally since March of 2020 is now 31,098 according to the health unit.
The number of resolved cases is up to 29,553. Currently, there are 1,210 known active cases in the region, down 12 from the previous day.
Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for Elgin and Oxford counties, no longer updates its COVID-19 cases dashboard on Thursdays. Its next update will be released on Friday.
Provincially, there was another drop in hospitalizations and ICU admissions.
The latest figures released by the province on Thursday show there are 1,342 people with COVID-19 admitted to hospitals in Ontario. That is down 61 since Wednesday and is the lowest it has been since the first week of January. Of the COVID-19 positive people in hospital, roughly 52 per cent were admitted because of the virus, while around 48 per cent were initially brought in for some other reason and tested positive for COVID-19.
There are 356 people in intensive care units across the province, down eight from Wednesday. Eighty per cent of the 356 patients in ICU are there because of the virus.
Public health officials said there were 2,327 new cases in Ontario on Thursday. Public health officials cautioned those numbers are considered an underestimate of the spread of the virus though, as eligibility for free PCR tests in Ontario have been extremely limited.
The province’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 1,080,937.
Thirty-seven additional deaths related to the virus were reported on Thursday, to bring the death toll up to 12,204. The province noted 36 of the latest deaths occurred over the past 27 days and one occurred more than a month ago.
The number of resolved cases rose by 3,204 to 1,045,685.
In the last 24 hour period, 18,462 tests COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s positivity rate is now around 11 per cent, down slightly from 11.2 per cent a week ago.
Data related to COVID-19 vaccination in the province was not available on Thursday.
