An 18-year-old has become the youngest person to die from COVID-19 in the London-region.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported the young man's death, along with two others, on Thursday. Until now, the youngest person to die from COVID-19 in the area was a 19-year-old long-term care home worker who succumbed to the virus in January.
Public health officials have said the teen was not associated with any seniors' facilities, and he was not a post secondary education student.
"Unfortunately, other people in his family are also sick," said Dr. Chris Mackie at a virtual news conference on Thursday. "We don't believe this was a person who was a high school student either. We also don't know if there were underlying medical conditions. The coroner is investigating, and we will have more information at some point, but that will take some time."
The other two deaths reported on Thursday were among two adult women, one in her 50s and the other in her 70s. Only the 70-year-old was linked to a long-term care home. The latest deaths are the fourth, fifth, and sixth to be recorded this month. They raise the local death toll to 206
Another 94 new COVID-19 cases were also logged on Thursday. That is a drop from the previous day's 113 new infections, but is up from 72 and 47 Tuesday and Monday. People 29-and-under account for 45 per cent of the latest COVID-19 cases recorded in London and Middlesex County.
The region's total case count since the pandemic began is now 10,903.
The health unit said there were 26 additional cases of the B.1.1.7 variant first identified in the U.K. for a total of 1,654. There have been eight cases involving the P.1. variant from Brazil and one case identified as the variant B.1.617 from India. The number of cases to test positive for a mutation was unchanged at 276.
The London Health Sciences Centre has seen a slight drop in the number of COVID-19 patients in its care. There are currently 96 patients with the virus in hospital, down from a record 99 on Wednesday. There are five fewer COVID-19 patients being treated in the intensive care unit for a total of 42. Of the 96 COVID-19 patients at the LHSC, 32 were transferred in from hospitals in hard hit areas of the province. Ten LHSC employees have tested positive for the virus.
Dearness Home is the latest seniors' facility to declare an outbreak, joining Kensington Village and Glendale Crossing. Elsewhere, there are outbreaks at two daycare centres and one Western University residence.
There were 90 more recoveries reported over the past 24 hours to bring the number of resolved cases to 9,792. Currently, there are 905 known active infections in the area.
The number of new cases in Elgin and Oxford counties increased on Thursday to 17. Southwestern Public Health said the latest cases bring the two counties total caseload to 3,490. The death toll was unchanged at 76. The total number of resolved cases stands at 3,297, leaving 117 known active cases in the two counties. A new outbreak has been declared at Tillsonburg District Memorial Hospital. Two staff members and three patients have contracted the virus there.
Provincially, the number of new infections reported rose about 3,000 for the first time in three day.
Public health officials said there were 3,424 new cases on Thursday. That is an increase from the 2,941 logged on Wednesday and the 2,791 recorded on Tuesday.
Regions with the most new cases were Toronto with 958, Peel with 900, York Region with 291, Durham with 175, and Hamilton with 155.
The province’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 483,057.
According to the province’s daily epidemiologic summary, Ontario identified 2,839 cases of the B.1.1.7. variant over the past 24 hours for a total of 83,350. Fifty-four more cases of the P.1 variant were found for a total of 1,055, while the number of new cases of the B.1.351 variant went up by nine for a total of 326. The daily epidemiologic summary does not currently list the B.1.617 variant, originally found in India.
Twenty-six deaths were reported on Thursday, to increase the province’s death toll to 8,213.
At hospitals in Ontario, there are 1,964 patients with COVID-19, a decrease of 111. Of those in hospital, 877 are in intensive care and 600 are on ventilators.
The number of resolved cases rose to 440,467. There are currently 34,377 known active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, 54,118 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s current positivity rate has risen slightly to 6.8 per cent from 6.6 per cent on Wednesday.
The province has administered 5,740,761 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, as of Wednesday night. There have been 384,589 people in Ontario who have received their second dose of the vaccine to be considered fully inoculated.