Middlesex London has now gone six consecutive days with fewer than 15 new daily COVID-19 cases.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported 12 infections on Friday. That is down from 13 on Thursday and marks the sixth straight day the daily case count has been under 15. Three days this week saw daily cases in the single-digits with eight, five, and nine cases recorded on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
The region's total caseload since the start of the pandemic is 6,068.
There has not been a COVID-19 related death in the city or county in the last six days. That leaves the death toll at 181, with only six of those deaths occurring this month.
"Together, we are winning," Medical Officer of Health Dr. Chris Macki tweeted. "Still, hyper-infectious variants are coming: distance: mask, don't gather indoors."
"A new one-day record high for number of COVID-19 vaccines administered in the region was reached Thursday with 1,117 doses making it into arms," Mackie said. That number is expected to go up as more vaccination clinics open within the city. Currently, there are two vaccination clinics in operation - one at the Western Fair Agriplex, the other at the Caradoc Community Centre in Mt. Brydges. Two more are planned in London.
Middlesex-London opened in the red-control level of the province's COVID-19 response framework on Tuesday. Whether restrictions will be eased further as a result of the downward trend in cases won't be known for another week.
"It’s expected we’ll find out from the Ontario Government next Friday (Feb. 26th) whether restrictions in London will loosen come Monday, March 1st — the earliest possible date that could happen," said Mayor Ed Holder.
Outbreaks remain at six local seniors facilities and at three schools. St. Anne's Catholic school in St. Thomas was the most recent elementary school to declare an outbreak. There are two positive cases linked to the school.
There are now just 15 COVID-19 inpatients in the care of the London Health Sciences Centre, down one from the previous day. Seven of those patients are listed in the intensive care unit.
Recoveries in the region went up by 12 over the past 24 hours to 5,754. That leaves 133 known active cases.
Just a single new COVID-19 case was reported Friday in Elgin and Oxford counties. Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for the two, said the latest case brings the total case count up to 2,453. The death toll is unchanged at 65 with no additional deaths reported over the past 24 hours. Caressant Care Retirement Home in Woodstock, Valleyview Nursing Home in St. Thomas, and Aylmer Retirement Residence continue to deal with outbreaks of the virus. The health unit said the total number of resolved cases in the counties is 2,338, leaving 50 known active cases.
The Thames Valley District School Board reported one case of COVID-19 at Central Public School in Woodstock. There are currently 13 active cases within the school board, a break down of them all can be found here.
Provincially, the number of new cases was back above 1,000 for the second straight day.
Public health officials logged 1,150 new infections across the province Friday, up from 1,038 the previous day.
Regions with the highest case counts were Toronto with 376, Peel with 264, and York Region with 108. The province confirmed on Friday both Toronto and Peel would remain under a stay-at-home order for another two weeks.
According to the province’s daily epidemiologic summary, there has been a total of 385 cases of the U.K. variant, known as B.1.1.7, nine confirmed cases of the South African variant, known as B.1.351, and one case of the Brazil variant, P.1.
The province’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 290,771.
Forty-seven deaths were reported over the past 24 hours. The province’s death toll is now 6,820.
At hospitals in Ontario, there are 689 patients with COVID-19. Of those, 269 are in intensive care and 190 are on ventilators.
The number of resolved cases rose to 273,401. There are currently 10,550 known active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, just over 65,000 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s current positivity rate is 2.1 per cent.
The province has administered 518,834 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine since Thursday night. A total of 217,715 people in Ontario have received their second dose of the vaccine and are considered fully inoculated.