Two more COVID-19 deaths were recorded as hospitalizations from the virus shot up over the weekend in the London area.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) confirmed on Monday 47 COVID-19 positive people are currently in the hospital's care. That is an increase of 14 people since Friday. According to hospital officials, 17 of those inpatients are being treated for the virus, while the remaining 30 are being treated for other ailments but have also tested positive for COVID. The intensive care unit has five or fewer patients with COVID-19 admitted, unchanged from Friday.
The number of patients with the virus at Children's Hospital went up from five or fewer on Friday to eight on Monday. At this time last week, there were no infected children at the hospital.
The number of hospital workers who have tested positive for the virus also saw an increase on Monday. There are 229 infected staffers at the LHSC, up three over the past 72 hours. A week ago there were 195 employees who had contracted COVID.
Transmission within the community remains relatively high, with 293 new cases logged over the weekend in London and Middlesex County. The health unit said 82 of the infections were recorded Monday, 84 were reported Sunday, and 126 were confirmed Saturday. Public health officials have cautioned 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 34,412 since the pandemic began.
There were two additional deaths related to the virus reported on Saturday and none Sunday or Monday. The local death toll is now sitting at 363.
Resolved cases in the area went up to 33,147 and the number of known active cases went up by 79 to 902 on Monday.
Southwestern Public Health, the health unit that covers Elgin and Oxford counties, reported 108 new cases since Friday. The latest infections bring the two counties' total case count to 12,167. There was one additional death recorded over the weekend to bring the death toll to 156. The health unit said the total number of resolved cases in the area is 11,673. There are 338 known active cases locally.
Provincially, there were no additional COVID-19 deaths, but hospitalizations increased on Monday.
There are currently 857 people with the virus in hospital, up 94 from Sunday. A week ago there were 655 COVID positive people in Ontario hospitals. Intensive care unit (ICU) admissions increased by two to 168. While both hospitalizations and ICU numbers are up, they could actually be higher than what was released Monday as not all hospitals report over the weekend, public health officials reminded.
Ontario logged 2,248 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 1,174,686.
Public health officials confirmed zero additional COVID-19 deaths on Monday. That comes after ten deaths were reported on Sunday. The provincial death toll since the pandemic began two years ago stands at 12,470.
The number of resolved cases are up by 1,697 to 1,137,062.
In the last 24 hour period, 11,195 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s positivity rate is now 19 per cent, up from 17.9 per cent a week ago and 13.4 per cent two weeks ago.
There have been 32,097,800 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 90.9 per cent have been given their second dose. To date, more than 7.1 million Ontarians have received a booster shot.
