There was a triple-digit jump in the number of new COVID-19 cases in London and Middlesex County on Wednesday, and most of the new cases involve young people.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported 126 new infections, the highest the daily case count has been since January 11 when 143 cases were recorded. The region's daily case numbers had been in the 70s the past two days after climbing to 114 on Sunday and 122 on Saturday.
Of Wednesday's newly confirmed infections, 88 (nearly 70 per cent) were among people under the age of 30.
The total number of cases in the city and county since the start of the pandemic now stands at 7,825. Another 51 screened variants were reported since Tuesday for a total of 466.
There were zero additional deaths locally, leaving the death toll at 190.
Henley Place is the only long-term care home in the region currently dealing with an outbreak. There are also outbreaks at the Parkwood Institute Mental Health Care building and at five area schools.
Six of Western University's residences have reported outbreaks. The affected dorms are Essex Hall, Delaware Hall, Elgin Hall, Medway-Sydenham Hall, Ontario Hall, and Saugeen-Maitland Hall. Public health officials confirmed Tuesday the largest of the on-campus outbreaks is at Saugeen-Maitland were 30 cases have been identified.
The London Health Sciences Centre has 27 patients in its care with COVID-19. That includes 12 people listed in the intensive care unit. Hospital officials have confirmed seven of those in the ICU were transferred to London from outside the Greater Toronto Area and Thunder Bay. Nine hospital employees have tested positive for the virus.
The number of cases that are considered resolved has gone up by 61 to 6,687. The total number of active cases is two shy of 950.
Southwestern Public Health recorded nine new COVID-19 cases and no additional deaths on Wednesday. That is down from a 13 new infections the previous day. The latest cases puts Elgin and Oxford counties’ total up to 2,920 and leaves the death toll at 69. Resolved cases rose to 2,739, leaving 112 active cases in the region. An outbreak remains at Caressant Care Bonnie Place in St. Thomas. One resident and one employee of the long-term care home have tested positive for the virus. There are no deaths linked to the outbreak.
Daily case numbers in Ontario remained above 3,000 for a second consecutive day.
According to public health officials, 3,215 new infections were confirmed on Wednesday. That is up from Tuesday’s 3,065 cases and is the highest daily case count in the province since 3,422 new infections were logged on January 17.
Regions with the highest new case counts continue to be Toronto with 1,095 and Peel with 596. That is followed by York Region with 342, Ottawa with 225, and Durham with 187.
The daily epidemiologic summary indicates Ontario found 1,719 more lab confirmed cases involving variants of concern over the past 24 hours. Further testing of those variants of concern shows there are now a total of 2,291 cases of the B.1.1.7. variant, 72 cases of the B.1.351 variant, and 120 cases of the the P.1. variant in the province.
Ontario’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 370,817.
Seventeen deaths were reported over the past 24 hours to bring the province’s death toll to 7,475.
Hospitalizations in the province continue to rise with 1,397 COVID-19 positive patients admitted, up 236 from the previous day. Of those in hospital, 504 are in intensive care and 311 are on ventilators.
Resolved cases across the province are up to 335,983. That leaves 27,359 known active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, 49,889 COVID-19 tests were processed, up from 37,541 the previous day. Ontario’s positivity rate has dropped to 6.7 per cent from 8.9 per cent.
The province has administered 2,726,221 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as of Tuesday night. A total of 324,783 people in Ontario have received their second dose of the vaccine and are considered fully inoculated.