The Middlesex London Health Unit is reporting fewer than a dozen new COVID-19 cases for the first time in more than two months.
Just 11 new infections were logged on Tuesday. The last time the daily case count was this low was on March 15 when 11 cases were also recorded. The drop comes as numbers at the region's COVID-19 testing facilities also dipped over the long weekend.
The health unit did not report daily figures on holiday Monday, but confirmed there were 37 new infections on that date.
The latest daily figures bring the area’s total case load since the pandemic began to 12,031.
There has not been a COVID-19 related death reported in the region since Friday. That leaves the death toll unchanged at 217.
Another 147 cases have been identified as variants of concern for a total of 2,881. There are 2,841 variants of concern that have been confirmed as the B.1.1.7 strain, which originated in the U.K. and 38 have tested positive as the P.1. variant from Brazil. The region has just a single case of the B.1.617 variant which originated in India. There are 358 cases that have tested positive for a mutation.
There were 136 recoveries logged over the long weekend to bring the total number of resolved cases to 11,345. Currently, there are 469 active cases in the city and county.
An outbreak at the Dearness Home in south London has been declared over. That leaves just three ongoing outbreaks at local seniors' facilities - Kensington Village, Kensington Village Retirement, and McGarrell Place.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) has 41 patients with COVID-19 in its care, 16 of whom are listed in intensive care. COVID-19 patients transferred into the LHSC from harder hit regions of the province include fewer than five acute care patients and six ICU patients.
As of Saturday, there have been 251,287 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine administered in the region. Vaccine eligibility opened up on Sunday to young people aged 12 to 17. Vaccine appointments can be booked online at www.covidvaccinelm.ca or by phone at 226-289-3560 between 8 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. daily.
In Elgin and Oxford counties, there were 32 new cases reported over the weekend. Southwestern Public Health said that brings the total caseload since last spring to 3,746. There was one additional COVID-19 related death in the region, increasing the death toll to 80. Resolved cases rose to 3,578 with 88 known active cases in the two counties remaining. Roughly 40.9 per cent of area residents have had one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 2.3 per cent have received both doses. The active outbreak at Tillsonburg District Memorial Hospital has grown with 19 confirmed cases and two deaths.
Ontario’s daily case count fell to its lowest level since March on Tuesday.
Public health officials logged 1,039 new infections across the province on Tuesday and 1,446 new cases on Monday.
The province released two days worth of COVID-19 numbers after taking the previous day off to mark Victoria Day.
Tuesday marked the lowest single-day case numbers in Ontario have been since March 6 when less than 1,000 infections were recorded.
Toronto had the province’s highest daily number of cases over the past 24 hours with 325, followed by Peel with 231, and York Region with 77.
Ontario’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now stands at 524,950.
The province has confirmed 985 more cases of the variant first discovered in the U.K., known as B.1.1.7, for a total of 120,130. The number of cases of the variant first associated with South Africa, known as B.1.351. is up by nine to 817. There are 40 more cases involving the variant first found in Brazil, known as P.1. for a total of 2,462. The epidemiologic summary currently does not list data surrounding the B.1.617 variant, originally found in India.
There were 41 additional deaths reported over the past two days. The provincial death toll is now 8,655.
There are currently 1,025 people with COVID-19 being treated at Ontario hospitals, an increase of 42 since Monday. COVID-19 related admissions to the intensive care unit are up by five to 692 and there are 498 patients on ventilators.
The number of resolved cases rose to 497,269. There are currently 19,026 active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, 16,900 COVID -19 tests were processed. That is down from nearly 20,200 the previous day and brings the province’s positivity rate to 6.4 per cent.
To date, the province has administered 8,251,642 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, with more than 544,200 people having received both shots required to be fully inoculated.
