The number of new COVID-19 cases reported in the London region has dropped below 20.
The Middlesex London Health Unit said there were 18 new infections on Monday, down from 22 on Sunday and 35 on Saturday. It is the ninth consecutive day the single-day case count has been below 50.
The region’s total case count stands at 12,231 since the pandemic began 15 months ago.
There has not been a COVID-19 related death recorded locally in two days. That leaves the area death toll at 219.
There were 117 more cases involving variants of concern identified in the region since Friday, for a total of 3,030. The B.1.1.7 variant, which originated in the U.K., now accounts for 2,978 of the cases. There are 49 cases of the P.1. variant from Brazil, one case identified as the South African variant, and one case of the B.1.617 variant that originated in India. There are 375 cases that have tested positive for a mutation.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) has 30 patients with COVID-19 in its care, down from 33 at the start of the weekend. Of those in hospital, 11 are in the intensive care unit. Fewer than five patients transferred in from other hard hit regions are in acute care and ICU.
Outbreaks remain at two local seniors’ facilities, one school, and one daycare.
Resolved cases in the city and county have risen to 11,752. Currently, there are 260 active cases in the region.
While the province has sped-up second dose bookings for the COVID-19 vaccine for those 80 and older as of Monday, the Middlesex London Health Unit is continuing to focus on first dose appointments. The health unit said the prioritization of first shots in the region is the result of a limitation in the vaccine supply. Middlesex-London has not received the same high number of doses as other nearby cities and communities. It is hoped seniors 80 and older will be able to begin pushing up their second dose appointments next Monday.
The number of new cases in Elgin and Oxford counties was 26 on Monday. The number includes infections identified both Saturday and Sunday, as Southwestern Public Health does not update its COVID-19 dashboard on weekends. The latest cases bring the two counties total case count to 3,791. There were no additional deaths recorded over the past two days, leaving the death toll unchanged at 80. There are no longer any active institutional outbreaks after the one at Tillsonburg District Memorial Hospital was resolved over the weekend. The health unit said the total number of resolved cases in the area is 3,659, leaving 52 known active cases in the two counties.
Provincially, the number of new COVID-19 cases has slipped below 1,000.
Public health officials reported 916 infections on Monday, the lowest number of daily cases since February 17.
Regions with the most new cases were Toronto with 226, Peel with 165, York Region with 85, Durham with 67, and Hamilton with 52.
According to the province’s daily epidemiologic summary, Ontario identified 910 cases of the B.1.1.7. variant over the past 24 hours for a total of 125,945. There were eight more cases of the P.1 variant for a total of 2,822, while the number of new cases of the B.1.351 variant is up by one for a total of 948. The daily epidemiologic summary does not list cases in the province of the B.1.617 variant, originally found in India.
The province’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 531,459.
Thirteen deaths were reported over the past 24 hours, to increase the province’s death toll to 8,757.
At hospitals in Ontario, there are 731 patients with COVID-19, an decrease of 18 since Sunday. The number of infected patients in the intensive care unit is down by three to 617 and there are 35 fewer patients on ventilators for a total of 382.
The number of resolved cases rose by 1,707 to 510,135. There are currently 12,567 known active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, 18,226 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s current positivity rate has dropped to 4.3 per cent, a low not seen since mid-March.
The province has administered 9,082,025 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, as of Sunday night. A total of 706,832 people in Ontario have received their second dose of the vaccine to be considered fully inoculated.
