For the second consecutive day, the London region has recorded a record-high number of new COVID-19 cases.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported 52 new infections and one additional death on Thursday. The latest daily case count breaks the previous record high of 47 set a day earlier and marks the fourth time this month the record has been broken.
A woman in her 70s is the latest to succumb to the virus. Her death is the 14th linked to an ongoing outbreak at University Hospital and brings the total death toll for the region up to 77.
Over the past 24 hours, five more staff members at University Hospital tested positive for the virus. That increases the number of infected hospital employees linked to the outbreak to 71. The number of patients to test positive remains at 73. A total of nine units at the hospital are dealing with an outbreak. The latest, on the general surgery unit, was declared Wednesday.
Five more schools in the region have reported positive cases of COVID-19. The new cases are at Sir Frederick Banting Secondary and Sir George Etienne Cartier Public in London, Summer's Corners Public outside of Aylmer, New Sarum Public near St. Thomas, and St. Mary's Catholic High in Woodstock. Outbreaks continue at four schools within the Thames Valley District school board and one school in the London District Catholic school board - Sir Arthur Currie Public, Mother Teresa Catholic Secondary, Westminster Secondary, Ashley Oaks Public, and St. Marguerite D’Youville Catholic. All schools remain open.
McCormick Home and Country Terrace, long-term care facilities in London and Komoka, are also dealing with COVID-19 outbreaks.
Since the start of the pandemic, there has been a total of 1,979 new cases in London and Middlesex County.
Forty-one locals have recovered from the virus, increasing the number of resolved cases to 1,587 and leaving 315 active cases.
Public health officials in Elgin and Oxford counties are reporting that region's second-highest single-day spike in cases. Southwestern Public Health said 19 more people in that area tested positive for the virus Thursday. That is just a few cases below the record of 22 set on October 29. The total case count for that region now stands at 679. Resolved cases have risen to 577 with 13 more recoveries reported since Wednesday. The death toll is unchanged at eight. Currently, there are 94 active cases in the two counties.
Ontario also saw a new single-day high number of new COVID-19 cases, as a record number of tests were processed for the virus.
Public health officials said there were 1,983 new infections in the province on Thursday. That surpasses the previous record high of 1,925 logged on Monday.
Peel led the way for the most new cases with 515. Toronto was close behind with 496. York Region had 208.
Ontario’s total number of cases now stands at 134,783.
Thirty-five more people died from the virus across the province, increasing the death toll to 3,871.
There were 1,804 more recoveries from the virus, bringing the resolved case total to 114,679.
The number of active cases of the novel coronavirus in Ontario is currently 16,233.
Currently, there are 825 infected Ontarians in hospital. Of those, 228 are in the intensive care unit and 132 are on ventilators to assist with breathing.
In the last 24 hour period, more than 60,000 COVID-19 tests were processed. That is the all-time largest number of tests to be done in the province throughout the pandemic. Ontario’s positivity rate stands at 3.6 per cent.
