The London region has recorded its sixth COVID-19 death of the week.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported a man in his 90s succumbed to the virus on Friday. He was not associated with a long-term care or retirement home. The death is the seventh this month and comes one day after the region reported its youngest COVID-19 casualty - an unidentified 18-year-old man. Public health officials said the teen was overcome with respiratory issues and died the same day he was rushed to hospital. It is not yet known if he had underlying medical conditions.
The latest death brings the local death toll to 207.
There were another 87 new COVID-19 cases logged in London and Middlesex County on Friday. That is down from 94 on Thursday and 113 on Wednesday.
Recoveries rose by 78 over the past 24 hours for a total of 9,870. There are currently 914 known active cases in the region.
Hospitalizations in the city and county fell by two on Friday to leave 94 COVID-19 positive patients in the care of the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC). Of those, 43 are listed in the intensive care unit and 34 were transferred in from overwhelmed hospitals in COVID-19 hotspots. There are eight LHSC employees who have tested positive for the virus.
The number of variants of concern identified in the area has risen to 1,728. There were 64 new cases involving the the B.1.1.7 variant that originated in the U.K., bringing the total to 1,718 cases. One more case of the P.1 variant from Brazil was confirmed for a total of nine. Middlesex London has had a single case of the B.1.617 variant, originally found in India. It was associated with international travel.
Another outbreak has been declared at a seniors' facility in the area. Kensington Village Retirement is the latest institution to announced an outbreak. Other long-term care homes with outbreaks are Dearness Home, Kensington Village, and Glendale Crossing.
The Thames Valley District School Board recorded one case of COVID-19 at Harrisfield Public School in Ingersoll. Officials with the school board say the local health unit is investigating the case, only those identified as a close contact of the affected individual will be contacted by health officials.
To date, there have been more than 180,000 doses of the vaccine administered locally. Medical Officer of Health Dr. Chris Mackie said Thursday he expected to hit 200,000 shots given by Saturday.
In Elgin and Oxford counties, there was a slight increase in the number of new cases. Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for the region, said there were 19 new COVID-19 infections recorded Friday, up from 17 on Thursday. The region’s total number of cases is now 3,509, with 3,311 resolved. There has not been a COVID-19 related death in the region in two weeks, leaving the death toll unchanged at 76. Currently, there are 122 active cases in the two counties. An outbreak at Tillsonburg District Memorial Hospital has grown. There are now seven patients and four staff members infected. As of last Saturday, 31.5 per cent of local residents have received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and 2.1 per cent have been given both doses.
The number of new COVID-19 cases in Ontario remained above 3,100 for the second straight day.
Public health officials confirmed 3,166 new infections across the province on Friday. However, that is down from 3,424 on Thursday. Daily case counts on Wednesday and Tuesday were 2,941 and 2,791.
Friday's numbers may be underreported for Central East, Central West and Toronto regions due to a "technical issue with the laboratory data feed," the ministry of health said.
Toronto had the province’s highest daily number of cases on Friday with 876, followed by Peel with 817, York Region with 300, Durham with 205, and Hamilton with 148.
Ontario’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now stands at 486,223.
There have been another 3,496 new cases of the variant originating from the U.K. in Ontario. That brings the province’s total number of B.1.1.7. cases to 86,846. Cases of the B.1.351 and P.1 variants are up by 41 and 14 for a total of 367 and 1,069.
There were 23 additional deaths reported over the past 24 hours. The provincial death toll is now 8,236.
Hospitalizations in Ontario are down a bit with 1,924 COVID-19 positive patients admitted. Of those, 858 are in intensive care and 611 are on ventilators.
The number of resolved cases rose to 444,342. There are currently 38,062 active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, over 51,300 COVID-19 tests were processed, down from 54,118 the previous day.
To date, the province has administered 5,885,485 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, with 387,484 people having received both shots required to be fully inoculated.
