Public health officials in the London region are reporting a minor increase in the number of new COVID-19 cases logged on Wednesday.
The Middlesex London Health Unit confirmed nine new infections over the past 24 hours. That is up from four on Tuesday and six on Monday. The region has recorded single-digit case increases daily for the past five days.
Since the pandemic began, there has been a total of 12,608 cases in the city and county. Resolved cases are up by eight for a total of 12,327. There are 55 active cases in the area.
There has not been a COVID-19 related death locally in a week and a half, leaving the death toll unchanged at 226.
Hospitalizations in the area are down by one with 10 COVID-19 patients in the care of the London Health Sciences Centre. Of those, fewer than five are listed in intensive care. There are also fewer than five hospital employees who have tested positive for the virus.
The region is outbreak free with no outbreaks at area hospitals, seniors’ facilities, or daycares.
There were two more cases involving variants of concern in London and Middlesex County, for a total of 3,489. Of those, 3,360 have been identified as the B.1.1.7 (Alpha) strain from the U.K., 97 are the P.1. (Gamma) variant from Brazil, 30 are the B.1.617 (Delta) strain from India, and there are two cases of the B.1.351 (Beta) variant from South Africa. The health unit also noted a total of 191 cases have tested positive for a mutation.
Southwestern Public Health recorded four new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday. That is up one from the previous day. The region's total case count since the pandemic began is now 3,895. The death toll remains at 83, with no additional COVID-19 related deaths reported in the region. Resolved cases rose to 3,794. There are now 18 active cases locally.
For the first time this year, Ontario reported zero additional COVID-19 related deaths.
Public health officials said the provincial death toll was unchanged on Wednesday at 9,224. The last time Ontario reported no new deaths was on October 14.
A total of 194 new infections were confirmed over the past 24 hours, marking the third consecutive day new cases numbers in the province have been below 200. Monday and Tuesday saw 170 and 164 new cases recorded.
Regions with the highest number of new infections on Wednesday were Waterloo with 42, Toronto with 35, and Peel Region with 26.
Ontario’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 546,411.
The daily epidemiologic summary indicates Ontario found 349 more lab confirmed cases over the past 24 hours of the B.1.1.7. variant. There are now a total of 144,338 cases of that strain. Another 18 cases of the P.1. variant has been confirmed for a total of 4,650 and there were five more cases of the B.1.351 variant for a total of 1,420 in Ontario. Another 137 cases of the Delta B.1.617 variant were also identified for a total of 2,222.
Hospitalizations in the province are down to 201 COVID-19 positive patients admitted. That’s down by one patient from the previous day. There are 220 patients in intensive care and 155 on ventilators.
Resolved cases across the province are up to 535,346. That leaves 1,841 known active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, 26,976 COVID-19 tests were processed, down from more than 28,755 on Tuesday. Ontario’s positivity rate has dropped from 1.1 per cent to 0.9 per cent.
The province has administered 16,126,179 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as of Tuesday night. There are more than 6 million people in Ontario who have received both doses of the vaccine and are considered fully inoculated.
