While the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in the London region saw a slight drop on Thursday, the local death toll climbed by three.
The Middlesex London Health Unit confirmed three women, two in their 60s and one in her 80s, have succumbed to the virus. None of the women were associated with a long-term care or retirement home. There have now been five COVID-19 related deaths in the region in less than a week. The latest deaths bring the local death toll up to 371.
The health unit also recorded 84 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, down from 127 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 36,099 according to the health unit.
The number of resolved cases is up to 34,760. Currently, there are 968 known active cases in the region, down from 1,075 a week ago.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) said it currently has 283 infected staffers, up one compared to Wednesday. A week ago there were 321 employees who had tested positive.
COVID-19 hospitalizations dipped slightly over the last 24 hours to 48 inpatients with the virus. It is the first time this week that number has been below 50.
Of the 48 people currently in hospital, there are 20 being treated for COVID-19 and 28 being treated for other ailments but who have also tested positive.
Intensive care unit admissions related to the virus went up by one to seven, while the number of COVID-19 patients in the care of Children’s Hospital was unchanged at five or fewer.
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 COVID-19 hospitalizations went down slightly on Thursday.
A total of 1,626 people with COVID-19 were admitted to Ontario hospitals on Thursday, down 36 over the previous day. At this time last week there were 1,392 hospitalizations.
The provincial breakdown of hospitalization numbers reported on Thursday shows 45 per cent of those admitted were because of COVID-19 and 55 per cent are being treated for other reasons but also have tested positive for COVID-19.
There are 207 people with COVID-19 in intensive care units across the province, an increase of four since Wednesday, according to the latest figures released by the province.
Public health officials said there were 5,038 new cases in Ontario on Thursday. The ministry noted that the number is higher than normal due to a data clean up. 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 1,229,572.
Nineteen additional deaths related to the virus were reported on Thursday, to bring the death toll up to 12,678. The province said two deaths were also removed from the count following a data clean up.
The number of resolved cases rose by 4,019 to 1,184,812.
In the last 24 hour period, 20,840 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s positivity rate is now 17.9 per cent, down from 18.1 per cent a week ago.
The province has administered 32,500,527 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, as of Wednesday night. Nearly 93 per cent of Ontarians 12 and older have received one dose of the vaccine, while 91.1 per cent have been given a second dose. More than 7.2 million first booster shots have been administered.
