The number of new COVID-19 cases reported in Middlesex-London is below ten for the third straight day.
The Middlesex London Health Unit said Wednesday there were nine new infections in the region, up from five the previous day and eight on Monday. Daily COVID-19 cases have not been in the single digits for this many consecutive days since the end of October. Since the start of the pandemic, there have been a total of 6,042 cases of the virus in the area.
There were also no additional COVID-19 related deaths recorded on Wednesday, leaving the region's death toll unchanged at 181. So far, there have only been six deaths linked to the virus this month.
Outbreaks remain at five local long-term care and retirement homes and on the G4 unit at the Parkwood Institute mental health care building. There are two public schools dealing with outbreaks - Clara Brenton public in London and Caradoc North public in Strathroy. Both schools remain open.
Pinetree Montessori School, a London preschool, has also now declared an outbreak, with two positive cases confirmed.
The London Health Sciences Centre currently has 19 inpatients with COVID-19, seven of whom are listed in the intensive care unit.
The total number of resolved cases in the city and county has risen to 5,722 over the past 24 hours. That leaves just 139 known active cases.
In Elgin and Oxford, there are five new COVID-19 infections. Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for the two counties, said Wednesday's infections bring the total case count to 2,441. The death toll is unchanged at 64 with no additional deaths reported in more than a week. There are three area long-term care or retirement homes dealing with cases of the virus. The hardest hit are PeopleCare Tavistock and Caressant Care Retirement Home Woodstock. They have a combined case total of 161 resident and staff infections and 12 deaths. Resolved cases have increased to 2,292. There are now 85 known active cases in the two counties.
Ontario’s daily case count has fallen to its lowest level since last October.
Public health officials logged just 847 new infections across the province on Wednesday. That is down from 904 cases on Tuesday, 963 on Monday, and 981 on Sunday. Daily infection totals have not been this low since October 28 when 834 cases were recorded.
Toronto had the province’s highest daily number of cases on Wednesday with 257, that was followed by Peel with 170 and York Region with 131.
There have been 338 cases of the more contagious U.K. variant, known as B.1.1.7, and six cases of the South African variant, known as B.1.351 found in the province. Ontario’s first case of the Brazil variant, P.1 was confirmed by Toronto Public Health more than a week ago.
Ontario’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now stands at 288,583.
There were ten additional deaths reported over the past 24 hours. The province’s death toll is now 6,729.
At hospitals in Ontario, there are 719 patients with COVID-19. Of those, 298 are in intensive care and 211 are on ventilators.
The number of resolved cases rose to 270,869. There are currently 10,985 active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, more than 33,900 COVID-19 tests were processed. The province’s positivity rate is 3 per cent.
To date, the province has administered 489,484 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, with 195,366 people having received both shots required to be fully inoculated.