Daily COVID-19 cases in the London region remained in the double-digits for a second straight day as people around the world marked the sombre one-year anniversary of the declaration of a global pandemic.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported 29 new infections on Thursday. That is up from 20 the previous day. Daily case counts in the region have been yo-yoing between single digits and the mid-to-high 20s for the past few weeks, but are still well below the daily numbers recorded at the start of the year.
The latest infections bring the total number of cases in the city and county to 6,369.
No additional deaths have been reported since Monday, leaving the local death toll at 185.
The flag outside of London City Hall was lowered to half-staff to mark the one-year anniversary of the pandemic declaration.
Thursday is a national day of observance to commemorate the more than 22,000 Canadians who have died of COVID-19 since the global pandemic was declared on March 11, 2020. Flags outside of London city hall and London police headquarters have been lowered to half-staff. Mayor Ed Holder touched on the sacrifices everyone has made over the last year in a statement.
"We’ve seen our kids unable to enjoy their favourite activities, family breakdowns, and mental health deterioration. Businesses have gone under, while women and men across our city have become unemployed," said Holder.
While the day serves as a time to remember lives claimed by the virus, Holder stated it should also be used to honour health-care and other essential workers, including police officers, firefighters and paramedics.
"Those who keep showing up, day after day, working extremely long hours, missing their family members, and making significant sacrifices all while under immense stress and scrutiny. We will remain forever grateful," said Holder.
He went on to urge Londoners to continue to follow public health guidelines such as physical distancing and wearing a face mask in public. Holder also expressed optimism that the end of the pandemic is near with the vaccine continuing to be administered to people across the country and the world.
A community outbreak linked to nearly a dozen post-secondary house parties was declared by the health unit on Thursday. To date, 22 people who attended the private social gatherings between March 2 and 6 have tested positive for the virus. Public health officials continue to work to notify close contacts of the infected.
An outbreak at Dearness Home was declared over a day earlier. That leaves five area long-term care and retirement facilities with outbreaks. There are also three schools in Middlesex London dealing with outbreaks, the Thames Valley reported a case at A.B. Lucas Secondary School Thursday, currently the school board is dealing with nine active cases.
Recoveries have risen to 6,026. Currently, there are 158 known active cases in the region.
Daily cases held steady Thursday in Elgin and Oxford counties. Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for the two counties, reported six new infections for the second day in a row for a total case count of 2,590. The death toll is unchanged at 67 with no additional deaths reported since February 20. The health unit said the total number of resolved cases in the counties is 2,481, leaving 42 known active cases.
Provincially, the number of new cases remained above 1,000 for the fifth consecutive day.
Public health officials logged 1,092 new infections across the province Thursday. That is down from 1,316 Wednesday and 1,185 Tuesday.
Regions with the most new cases Thursday were Toronto with 293, Peel with 199, and York Region with 79.
According to the province’s daily epidemiologic summary, there were 35 more confirmed cases of the U.K. variant, known as B.1.1.7 to bring the total to 956. The number of lab confirmed cases of the South African variant, B.1.351, rose by two to 41. There were 11 more cases of the Brazil variant, P.1. for a total of 28.
The province’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 313,520.
Ten deaths were reported over the past 24 hours, to increase the province’s death toll to 7,109.
At hospitals in Ontario, there are 680 patients with COVID-19. Of those, 277 are in intensive care and 184 are on ventilators.
The number of resolved cases rose to 295,128. There are currently 11,283 known active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, 60,619 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s current positivity rate is 2.4 per cent.
The province hit a milestone in its vaccination effort, administering its one millionth dose on Wednesday night. There are 281,714 people in Ontario who have received their second dose of the vaccine to be considered fully inoculated.