The London-area once again has fewer than 100 active cases of COVID-19, however another person has succumbed to the virus.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported the death of a woman in her 80s on Tuesday. The woman was associated with a retirement home. Public health officials did not provide any other details about the woman, including whether or not she had been vaccinated. Her death is the fourth this month and the first since Friday related to the virus. The local death toll now stands at 223.
The number of known active infections in the region dropped to 96 over the past 24 hours. This is only the second time since early-March active cases have been in the double-digits. Spread of the virus has been declining over the past few weeks with daily case counts below 25 for the past 13 days. On Tuesday, just seven new infections were logged in the area, down from 18 on Monday.
The region’s total case count since the start of the pandemic stands at 12,449.
Another 59 cases have been identified as variants of concern for a total of 3,315. There are 3,167 variants of concern that have been confirmed as the B.1.1.7 (Alpha) strain and 83 have tested positive as the P.1. (Gamma) variant or a sublineage of it. The region has also had three cases of the B.1.617 (Delta) variant or a sublineage of it and two cases of the B.1.351 (Beta) strain. There are 310 cases that have tested positive for a mutation.
There were eight recoveries logged over the last 24 hours to bring the total number of resolved cases to 12,130.
There are no ongoing outbreaks at local seniors’ facilities or daycares.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) has 19 patients with COVID-19 in its care, ten of whom are listed in intensive care. COVID-19 patients transferred into the LHSC from regions outside of the London-area include fewer than five acute care patients and fewer than five ICU patients. There is an active outbreak of the virus on University Hospital's 8TU transplant unit. According to the LHSC, fewer than five patients and fewer than five employees have tested positive in relation to this outbreak. It is the hospital's first outbreak since March.
As of Saturday, there have been 355,268 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine administered in the region, which works out to 72 percent of all area residents aged 18 and older having received at least one dose. The health unit hopes to expand eligibility for accelerated second dose COVID-19 shots very soon as the region is expected to get a 70 per cent increase in the local vaccine supply in the coming weeks. The supply boost will allow the health unit to administer 6,000 doses a day as of next Monday and even more a day the following week.
In Elgin and Oxford counties, there were six new cases reported Tuesday. Southwestern Public Health said that brings the total caseload since last spring to 3,838. There has not been a COVID-19 related death in the region in nearly a week, leaving the death toll at 83. Resolved cases rose to 3,732 with 23 known active cases in the two counties remaining. Roughly 58.3 per cent of area residents have had one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 6.6 per cent have received both doses. There are no active outbreaks locally.
Ontario’s daily COVID-19 case count has dropped to its lowest level in nine months.
Public health officials logged 296 new infections across the province on Tuesday. The last time the number of single-day cases fell below 300 was on September 17 when 293 infections were confirmed. The latest cases are also a significant drop from Monday's 447 and Sunday's 530.
Peel had the province’s highest daily number of cases over the past 24 hours with 62, followed by Toronto with 60, Waterloo with 45, and York Region with 15.
Ontario’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now stands at 540,426.
The province has confirmed 678 more cases of the B.1.1.7 variant first discovered in the U.K., known as Alpha, for a total of 140,618. The number of cases of the B.1.351 variant first associated with South Africa, known as Beta, held at 1,137. There are two more cases involving the P.1. variant first found in Brazil, known as Gamma, for a total of 4,137. The epidemiologic summary does not list data surrounding the B.1.617 variant, known as Delta, which was originally found in India.
There were 13 additional deaths reported over the past two days. The provincial death toll is now 8,974.
There are currently 433 people with COVID-19 being treated at Ontario hospitals, an increase of 49 since Monday. COVID-19 related admissions to the intensive care unit are down by 22 to 382 and there are 244 patients on ventilators.
The number of resolved cases rose by 645 to 526,440. There are currently 5,012 active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, 17,162 COVID-19 tests were processed. That is up from 13,588 the previous day and brings the province’s positivity rate to 2.3 per cent.
To date, the province has administered 11,529,430 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, with more than 2 million people having received both shots required to be fully inoculated.
