Middlesex London appears to be over the worst of the second wave of the COVID-19 crisis.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported 52 new infections on Friday, the sixth consecutive day daily cases have been below 100. The nearly week long return to double-digit increases follows several weeks of significantly higher case counts that hit a record high of 161 on January 5.
"We have peaked, but it doesn't mean it is the last peak we will see," Dr. Chris Mackie, the region's medical officer of health, said during a briefing Thursday. "Hopefully this decline is something we can continue in the weeks and months to come."
Mackie also took the opportunity to warn the public not to become complacent about public health measures just because numbers are starting to go down.
"There could be any number of reasons why we might see case counts go back up again. If we see behaviour being relaxed too quickly we could see a jump in cases," Mackie said.
Since the start of the pandemic, the region has had a total of 5,347 COVID-19 cases.
The health unit also confirmed on Friday three more people succumbed to the virus. Two, a man and woman in their 90s, lived in local long-term care. The third person was a woman in her 70s who did not reside in an assisted living facility.
There have been 164 COVID-19 deaths in the area since last March. Sixty-two of those deaths occurred in January alone.
There are outbreaks at 15 local long-term care and retirement homes. To date, there have been 696 cases and 88 deaths linked to the facilities.
An ongoing COVID-19 outbreak continues to affect staff and patients on two units at Victoria Hospital and one unit at University Hospital. The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC), which operates both hospitals, said fewer than five patients and five staff members have tested positive on the affected units at Victoria Hospital. Eight employees and no patients have contracted the virus through the outbreak at University. There are no deaths associated with any of the outbreaks There are 22 inpatients in the LHSC's care with COVID-19, eight of them are listed in intensive care.
Recoveries were up by 54 to 3,648 . That leaves 1,535 active COVID-19 cases in the London region.
In Elgin and Oxford, there were 15 new COVID-19 infections recorded over the last 24 hours. Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for the two counties, said the latest cases bring the total case count to 2,151. The death toll is unchanged at 49, with zero additional deaths reported on Friday. There are 13 area long-term care or retirement homes dealing with cases of the virus. The facility with the highest number of cases continues to be Maple Manor Nursing Home in Tillsonburg where 85 residents and 53 staff members have tested positive. Seventeen deaths are linked to the outbreak at the home.
The region's resolved cases rose to 1,847 Friday, leaving 255 active cases.
Provincially, the number of new COVID-19 cases was 2,662 on Friday. That is up from 2,632 the previous day.
Toronto had the highest number of new infections of any city in the province with 779. Peel recorded 542, York Region had 228, Waterloo reported 128, and Windsor-Essex had 118.
Ontario’s total case count now sits at 250,226.
Eighty-seven deaths were reported by public health officials, with 43 of those deaths associated with long-term care homes. The province’s death toll is now 5,701.
At hospitals in Ontario, there are 1,512 patients with COVID-19. Of those, 383 are in intensive care and 291 are on ventilators.
The number of resolved cases rose to 219,262.
In the last 24 hour period, 71,750 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s positivity rate has dropped to roughly 3.3 per cent. It has not been that low since December 13.
As of 8 p.m. Thursday, the province has administered 264,985 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.