March 24, 2021 1:02 p.m.
For the second time this month, daily COVID-19 case numbers in the London area have surged over 30.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported 31 new infections on Wednesday. That’s from 10pm on Tuesday and 8pm on Monday. The only other day in March that cases were this high was last Friday when 31 cases were also recorded.
The number of confirmed variants and variant-positive cases screened was four and 54, respectively.
A total of 6,668 cases have been confirmed in London and Middlesex Counties since the pandemic began.
The death toll in the region remains unchanged at 185. There were only two COVID-19-related deaths this month – one on March 3 and one on March 8. This is a sharp drop from January, the deadliest month for the virus in the region (73 people died. Vaccination of residents and staff in nursing and retirement homes has been credited for filing deaths.
Outbreaks remain at three local senior citizen facilities, a public school in Lucan and the Essex Hall residence at Western University. There are currently 10 active cases in nine regional schools. Five of these cases were reported to the public on Tuesday at Glen Cairn in London, Parkview in Komoka, Harrisfield in Ingersoll, Huron Park Secondary in Woodstock and the Strathroy District Collegiate Institute.
The London Health Sciences Center outbreak has not grown with six patients and fewer than five employees infected. There are no deaths related to this outbreak. The hospital network has a total of 15 patients with COVID-19 under its care, six of whom are listed in the intensive care unit. Seven employees also tested positive.
On Wednesday, the health unit reported 15 more recoveries, bringing the total number of resolved cases to 6,278. There are currently 205 known active cases in the region.
Southwestern Public Health recorded seven new COVID-19 cases and no other deaths on Wednesday. That is less than 17 new infections the day before. In the most recent cases, Elgin and Oxford counties total 2,723 and the death toll is 67. No COVID-19 death has occurred in the two counties in more than a month. The number of resolved cases rose to 2,578, leaving 78 active cases in the region. There is a senior facility with an active case – Arches Transitional Bed Program.
The daily case numbers in Ontario increased slightly after a decrease of one day.
According to health officials, 1,571 new infections were confirmed on Wednesday. That’s a little over 1,546 on Tuesday. This is the second day in a row that the daily cases were below 1,600.
Regions with the highest number of cases were Toronto with 459 cases, followed by Peel and York Region with 309 and 143 cases.
The daily epidemiological summary shows that Ontario found 909 additional laboratory-confirmed cases with variants of concern. There are now a total of 1,389 cases of the British variant, known as B.1.1.7., 50 cases of the South African variant, known as B.1.351, and 47 cases of the Brazilian variant, P.1.
The total number of cases since the pandemic began in the province now stands at 333,690.
Ten deaths have been reported in the past 24 hours, bringing the province’s death toll to 7,263.
Ontario hospitals are currently treating 893 patients with COVID-19. Of these, 333 are in intensive care and 210 on ventilators.
Solved cases across the province are up to 311,380. That leaves 15,047 known active cases of the virus in Ontario.
More than 51,000 COVID-19 tests have been processed in the past 24 hours, up from 32,556 the previous day. The positivity rate in Ontario has dropped from 5.7 percent to 3.7 percent.
The province administered 1,676,150 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday evening. A total of 302,664 people in Ontario have received their second dose of vaccine and are considered fully vaccinated.
