The London region is ending the month with a jump back into double-digit new COVID-19 cases.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported 10 new infections on Wednesday. That is up from nine on Tuesday and five on Monday. The latest cases break a six day streak of single-digit daily case counts in the region.
Since the pandemic began, there has been a total of 12,561 cases in the city and county. Resolved cases are up by two for a total of 12,285. There are 48 active cases in the area.
There has not been a COVID-19 related death locally since Saturday, leaving the death toll unchanged at 226.
Hospitalizations in the area held steady with nine COVID-19 patients in the care of the London Health Sciences Centre. Of those, fewer than five are listed in intensive care. There are currently no 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 five more cases involving variants of concern in London and Middlesex County, for a total of 3,478. Of those, 3,356 have been identified as the B.1.1.7 (Alpha) strain from the U.K., 97 are the P.1. (Gamma) variant from Brazil, 23 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 189 cases have tested positive for a mutation.
Medical Officer of Health Dr. Chris Mackie tweeted on Wednesday that since the region started receiving larger vaccine shipments the number of people inoculated has risen dramatically.
"The Middlesex London Health Unit and partners have vaccinated over 50,000 people in the 8-day period from June 21-28 inclusive. And we're going to continue at that pace as long as we need to," wrote Mackie.
The figure includes shots given at the Agriplex, Mt. Brydges, North London Optimist Community Centre, and Earl Nichols Community Centre mass vaccination clinics and pop-up sites. Once doses administered through pharmacies are added in, that number will rise.
The health unit will not be releasing updated COVID-19 numbers on Thursday due to the statutory holiday. It has also announced that as of July it will no longer release updated figures on weekends.
"When the reporting of COVID-19 cases resumes each Monday, the health unit will include a breakdown on its dashboard, by day, of the COVID-19 cases and deaths reported over the weekend," the health unit said in a statement.
Urgent updates will still be released when necessary.
Southwestern Public Health recorded zero new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday. This is the second day in a row there were no new infections, leaving Elgin and Oxford counties’ total case count since the pandemic began at 3,878. The death toll remains at 83, with no additional COVID-19 related deaths reported in the region. Resolved cases rose to 3,784. There are now 11 active cases locally.
On the same day Ontario entered Step 2 of its economic reopening plan, daily cases hit a nearly ten month low.
A total of 184 new infections were confirmed on Wednesday. That is the lowest single-day case count since September 10 when 170 infections were logged. Monday and Tuesday saw 210 and 299 new cases recorded.
Regions with the highest number of new infections over the past 24 hours were Waterloo with 46, Grey Bruce with 19, and Toronto and Hamilton with 17 each.
Ontario’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 544,897.
According to public health officials, there were 14 additional deaths related to the virus on Wednesday. The official death toll now stands at 9,168.
The daily epidemiologic summary indicates Ontario found 63 more lab confirmed cases over the past 24 hours of the B.1.1.7. variant. There are now a total of 143,444 cases of that strain. Another 105 cases of the P.1. variant has been confirmed for a total of 4,544 and there were 50 more cases of the B.1.351 variant for a total of 1,365 in Ontario. Another 205 cases of the Delta B.1.617 variant were also identified for a total of 1,909.
Hospitalizations in the province have risen to 251 COVID-19 positive patients admitted. That’s down by six patients from the previous day. There are 271 patients in intensive care and 181on ventilators.
Resolved cases across the province are up to 533,472. That leaves 2,257 known active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, 27,258 COVID-19 tests were processed, down from 28,306 on Tuesday. Ontario’s positivity rate has dropped from 1.6 per cent to 1 per cent.
The province has administered 14,741,138 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as of Tuesday night. There are 4,808,170 people in Ontario who have received both doses of the vaccine and are considered fully inoculated.
The province has said it will not release updated COVID-19 numbers on Canada Day, but will include those figures with Friday's data.