COVID-19 hospitalizations have dropped to their lowest level so far this year, but the death toll from the virus in London and Middlesex County continues to go up.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported on Friday that a woman in her 60s is the latest person in the region to succumb to the virus. She was not associated with a long-term care or retirement home. Her death is the eighth link to COVID-19 locally so far this month and the third this week. The local death toll currently stands at 355.
Another 86 new cases were confirmed over the past 24 hours in the city and county, up from 60 on Thursday. However, the Middlesex London Health Unit has noted that single-day case counts are likely an underestimate of the true number of people in the region with the virus, due to changes made to testing eligibility.
The total number of confirmed infections in the region since the pandemic began is now 32,991.
The number of resolved cases rose to 31,944. There are 692 known active cases in the region, up 18 over the past 24 hours.
Hospitalizations from the virus continued to trend downward on Friday, according to figures released by London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC). The hospital network currently has 23 COVID-19 inpatients in its care, down four from Thursday and 15 from this time last week. Of those in the care of the LHSC, five or fewer are listed in intensive care.
The LHSC noted 13 of the 23 COVID-19 positive people in its care were admitted for treatment of the virus. The 10 remaining people came to the hospital for other reasons and tested positive for the virus.
There are currently 167 hospital workers who have tested positive for the virus, unchanged from Thursday.
In Elgin and Oxford counties, there were 57 new COVID-19 cases reported Friday. Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for the region, said that brings the local total number of cases to 11,610 with 11,232 resolved. The COVID-19 death toll locally was unchanged at 153. There are currently 225 known active cases in the two counties.
COVID-19 hospitalizations and intensive care admissions again hit a new low for 2022 on Friday.
Public health officials confirmed there are currently 615 COVID-19 positive people in hospitals across the province. That is down 29 from the previous day. Of the 615 in hospital, roughly 44.4 per cent were admitted because of the virus, while 55.5 per cent were admitted for other reasons and tested positive for the virus.
In intensive care units, there are 193 patients with COVID-19, down six from Thursday. The last time hospitalizations and ICU admissions related to the virus were this low was in late December.
Ontario logged 2,502 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday. Public health officials have cautioned the daily counts are an underestimate of the spread of the virus in the province due to limited PCR testing eligibility.
Ontario’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now stands at 1,134,443.
There were six additional deaths reported over the past 24 hours, pushing the death toll up to 12,313. The province said two previously reported deaths were removed from the count as part of a data cleanup.
The number of resolved cases are up by 1,899 to 1,106,136.
In the last 24 hour period, 14,198 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s positivity rate is now 12.9 per cent, up from 11.7 per cent a week ago and 10.7 per cent two weeks ago.
To date, the province has administered 31,942,537 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, with 90.8 per cent of people 12 and older having received two shots. More than 7.1 million Ontarians have received a booster shot.
Friday marked the last day Ontario’s Health Minister Christine Elliott intends to post daily COVID-19 data on social media.
“With key indicators continuing to improve or remain stable and the majority of public health measures now lifted, today will be the last day I tweet the daily #COVID19 numbers,” Elliott said on Twitter.
She noted all of the information will continue to be available on a daily basis online at Ontario.ca/coronavirus.
With key indicators continuing to improve or remain stable & the majority of public health measures now lifted, today will be the last day I tweet the daily #COVID19 numbers.
There are no changes to available data. As always, the numbers can be found at https://t.co/ypmgZbVRvn.
— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) March 18, 2022
