On the same day Ontario's stay-at-home order expired, there was a rise in new COVID-19 cases in the London region.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported 33 new infections on Wednesday. That is up from 17 on Tuesday, 18 on Monday, and 22 on Sunday. The area has not seen a day with more than 50 new infections in 11 straight days.
Since the pandemic began, there has been a total of 12,280 cases in the city and county.
There was one additional COVID-19 related death in the region. Public health officials confirmed a man in his 70s, who was not associated with a long-term care or retirement home, is the latest to succumb to the virus. His death increases the local death toll to 220.
Hospitalizations in the area held steady at 31 COVID-19 patients admitted to the London Health Sciences Centre. There are 11 COVID-19 patients listed in intensive care, an increase of two since Tuesday. COVID-19 patients transferred to the LHSC from outside of the region include fewer than five in acute care beds and fewer than five in intensive care.
There were 31 more cases involving variants of concern in London and Middlesex County, for a total of 3,075. Of those, 3,021 have been identified as the B.1.1.7 from the U.K., 50 are the P.1. variant from Brazil, three are the B.1.617 strain from India, and there is one case of the B.1.351 variant from South Africa. The health unit also noted a total of 376 cases have tested positive for a mutation.
An outbreak at Kensington Village has been declared over, leaving just Kensington Village Retirement as the only local seniors' facility with an active outbreak.
Resolved cases are up by 52 for a total of 11,846. There are currently 214 active cases in the region.
Southwestern Public Health recorded three new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, it’s lowest daily case count in two weeks. The latest cases puts Elgin and Oxford counties’ total up to 3,798. There were two additional COVID-19 related deaths reported in the region, to bring the death toll up to 82. Resolved cases rose to 3,668. There are now 48 active cases locally.
Ontario marked its third straight day below 1,000 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday.
A total of 733 new infections were confirmed over the past 24 hours, up from Tuesday’s 699 cases. Tuesday’s case count was the province’s lowest to be reported in a single-day since October 18 of last year.
The lower single-day case numbers come as the province's stay-at-home order came to an end on Wednesday. It had been in place for two months. While Ontarians can now leave their homes for non-essential purposes, the province has not yet entered Stage 1 of its reopening plan, meaning outdoor gatherings are still capped at five, patio and indoor dining is shut, capacity limits for essential stores is still 25 per cent and non-essential retail remains closed. Stage 1 reopening is anticipated to begin on June 14.
Regions with the highest new number of infections continue to be Toronto with 173 and Peel with 134. That is followed by York Region with 69 and Hamilton with 66.
Ontario’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 532,891.
According to public health officials, there were 25 additional deaths related to the virus on Wednesday. The official death toll now stands at 8,791.
The daily epidemiologic summary indicates Ontario found 938 more lab confirmed cases over the past 24 hours of the B.1.1.7. variant. There are now a total of 127,645 cases of that strain, which was first discovered in the U.K. Another 44 cases of the P.1. variant has been confirmed for a total of 2,911 and there were three more cases of the B.1.351 variant for a total of 952 in Ontario. Hospitalizations in the province have gone down to 708 COVID-19 positive patients admitted. That’s an decrease of 96 patients from the previous day. Of those in hospital, there are 576 in intensive care and 399 on ventilators.
Resolved cases across the province are up to 513,436. That leaves 10,664 known active cases of the virus in Ontario, down from 17,727 a week ago.
In the last 24 hour period, 31,768 COVID-19 tests were processed, up from 20,262 on Tuesday. Ontario’s positivity rate has dropped to 2.8 per cent from 3.6 per cent.
The province has administered 9,342,121 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as of Tuesday night. A total of 781,163 people in Ontario have received their second dose of the vaccine and are considered fully inoculated.
