Two men in their 80s are the latest in the London region to die from COVID-19.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported the two deaths, along with 43 new infections on Thursday. The deaths come a day after four others were reported by the health unit. Since Monday, there has been at least one COVID-19 related death reported every day, for a total of nine. The death toll now stands at 74.
The two latest deaths are not connected to either long-term care or retirement homes and the health unit has not yet specified whether they are related to an ongoing outbreak at University Hospital. The six-unit outbreak has seen 46 staffers test positive for the virus and 62 patients infected. The hospital has stopped admissions and postponed most of its surgeries as it works to contain the spread. To date, ten deaths have been associated with the outbreak.
Elsewhere, outbreaks are ongoing on one unit at the Parkwood Institute and at St. Marguerite d’Youville Catholic School.
London-Middlesex's daily case count of 43 is down slightly from Wednesday's record high of 46. It is the first day this week daily cases have not exceeded the previous day's.
There has been speculation the upward trend in cases could see London-Middlesex moved from the yellow-protect to the orange-restrict level of Ontario's five-tiered COVID-19 response framework.
Since the start of the pandemic, there has been a total of 1,737 cases in the city and county.
Resolved cases went up by ten since Wednesday to 1,414. That leaves the number of active cases in the region at 249.
In Elgin and Oxford counties, there were seven new cases of COVID-19 reported Thursday. That is down slightly from eight the previous day and brings the total number of infections to 582. There were no new deaths recorded over the last 24 hours. The area’s death toll stands at seven, according to Southwestern Public Health. A total of 512 cases have been resolved in the two counties, up nine. There are currently 63 active cases in the region.
Ontario recorded 1,824 new COVID-19 cases Thursday. However, the numbers would have been slightly lower had it not been for a data processing error that failed to count the 127 infections confirmed by the Middlesex London Health Unit over the past three days.
Of the new cases, 1,175 were in the COVID-19 hotspots of Peel (592), Toronto (396), and York Region (187).
Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 121,746 COVID-19 cases in Ontario.
Fourteen more deaths were reported in the province on Thursday. That brings the death toll up to 3,712.
The number of resolved cases rose to 103,239 with 1,541 additional recoveries reported.
The number of COVID-19 infected patients in hospitals across the province rose to 666, including 195 in the intensive care unit and 107 on ventilators. Public health officials have previously stated that once COVID-19 ICU admissions surpass 150 it becomes more likely non-COVID-related procedures will be postponed to accommodate the rising number of patients with the virus.
Over the past 24 hours, Ontario completed nearly 52,900 COVID-19 tests.
