For a second straight day, the number of new COVID-19 cases in the London region were under 20.
The Middlesex London Health Unit logged 11 new infections on Monday. That is down from 19 on Sunday. Prior to that the area recorded 20-plus cases daily for four consecutive days. Part of that spike was attributed to a community outbreak involving post secondary students who became infected while attending off-campus social gatherings.
The region's total case load now sits at 6,442.
It has been one week since a COVID-19 related death was reported in London and Middlesex County, leaving the death toll unchanged at 185.
The number of resolved cases rose by 14 to 6,094. Currently, there are 160 known active cases in the region.
An outbreak continues at the London Health Sciences Centre's University Hospital. Fewer than five patients and staff members have been infected on the U4 - Medicine 1 unit. There are no deaths linked to this outbreak.
Seven local long-term care and retirement homes and two schools have reported outbreaks. The health unit said there are seven active cases at six schools in the region.
The Thames Valley district school board reported three new cases of COVID-19 at three area schools on Monday. The infections were confirmed at Ryerson Public School and Sir Arthur Currie Public School in London, and Wilberforce Public School in Lucan. All three schools will remain open and only those considered to have been in close contact with the affected individuals will be contacted for further testing and quarantine advice.
Daily cases were up slightly Monday in Elgin and Oxford counties. Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for the two counties, reported nine new infections for a total case count of 2,635. The minor increase comes after the region recorded just two new cases Sunday. The death toll is unchanged at 67 with no additional deaths reported since February 20. Outbreaks at Maples Retirement Home in Tavistock and Bethany Care Home Norwich have been resolved, leaving Arches Transitional Bed Program Woodstock as the only facility with an active case. The health unit said the total number of resolved cases is 2,507, leaving 61 known active cases.
Provincially, the number of new cases fell below 1,300.
Public health officials logged 1,268 new infections across the province Monday, down from 1,747 on Sunday, and 1,468 on Saturday.
Regions with the most new cases Monday were Toronto with 366, Peel with 220, and York Region with 147.
According to the province’s daily epidemiologic summary, variant mutations were confirmed in 407 of the latest cases. Ontario currently has a total of 1,106 cases of the U.K. variant, known as B.1.1.7, 44 cases of the South African variant, B.1.351, and 34 cases of the Brazil variant, P.1.
The province’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 319,374.
Nine deaths were reported over the past 24 hours, to increase the province’s death toll to 7,162.
At hospitals in Ontario, there are 699 patients with COVID-19. Of those, 298 are in intensive care and 187 are on ventilators.
The number of resolved cases rose to 299,684. There are currently 12,528 known active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, over 33,900 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s current positivity rate is 3.8 per cent, up from 3.1 per cent on Sunday.
The province has administered 1,191,553 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine since Sunday night. There are 287,283 people in Ontario who have received their second dose of the vaccine to be considered fully inoculated.