The steady increase of COVID-19 infections among staff at London's hospitals continued over the weekend.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) said on Monday 232 of its workers have tested positive for the virus, that is up 34 since Friday. Employee cases at the LHSC began rising again last week, following several weeks of declines. At the height of the fifth wave, a record 512 hospital workers were confirmed sick on January 12.
Meanwhile, the number of inpatients being treated for COVID-19 at the LHSC was unchanged on Monday with 44 people in the hospital network's care. According to hospital officials, only 13 of the COVID positive inpatients are being treated for the virus, while the remaining 31 are being treated for other ailments but have tested positive for COVID.
The intensive care unit has five or fewer patients with COVID-19 admitted, down from six on Friday. It is the first time since mid-December ICU admissions have been this low. There are currently five or fewer inpatients with the virus admitted to Children's Hospital.
The Middlesex London Health Unit logged 164 new COVID-19 cases over the weekend.
There were 50 new cases recorded on Monday, 57 new cases on Sunday, and 57 new cases on Saturday. However, public health officials caution that single-day case numbers are an underestimate of community spread due to eligibility changes that limit who can receive a test. The area’s total case count stands at 31,757 since the pandemic began.
There were no additional deaths recorded over the past 72 hours. The local death toll since the pandemic began stands at 349, with 49 of those deaths occurring this month. That makes February 2022 the deadliest month of the pandemic locally, only surpassed by January 2021 when there were a record 71 deaths linked to the virus.
Resolved cases in the area went up to 30,758, while the number of active cases went down by 93 to 650 on Monday.
Southwestern Public Health, the health unit that covers Elgin and Oxford counties, reported 71 new cases since Friday. The latest infections bring the two counties total case count to 11,212. There were no additional deaths recorded, leaving the death toll unchanged at 149. The health unit said the total number of resolved cases in the area is 10,824. There are 239 known active cases locally. The health unit announced on Monday that it will be keeping its mass vaccination clinics in St. Thomas and Woodstock closed on Tuesdays and Thursdays going forward. The shift of hours is meant to free up staff to accommodate more pop-up clinics.
Provincially, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 was below 1,000 for a second straight day.
There are currently 849 people with the virus in hospital, up by seven since Sunday. Intensive care unit (ICU) admissions decreased by two to 279. While it is the first time since late December hospital admissions due to the virus have been below 1,000, the figure could actually be higher as not all hospitals release current numbers over the weekend, Health Minister Christine Elliott reminded.
Ontario logged 1,315 new infections over the past 24 hours. But single-day case counts are considered to be an underestimation of community spread as the Ford government restricted eligibility for publicly-funded COVID-19 tests at the end of December. The latest cases put Ontario’s total case count since the start of the pandemic to 1,102,011.
Public health officials confirmed three additional COVID-19 deaths on Monday that occurred over the past month. The provincial death toll since the pandemic began nearly two years ago now stands at 12,433.
The number of resolved cases are up by 1,605 to 1,071,400.
In the last 24 hour period, 12,116 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s positivity rate is now 8.9 per cent.
There have been 31,684,081 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine administered in Ontario as of Sunday night. Nearly 93 per cent of Ontarians 12 and older have received one dose of the vaccine, while 90.5 per cent have been given their second dose. To date, more than 6.9 million Ontarians have received a booster shot.
