The Middlesex London Health Unit is reporting its lowest daily COVID-19 case count since the end of March.
Public health officials logged just 27 new infections on Monday. Single-day numbers have not been this low since March 23 when 22 cases were recorded. The significant drop comes after weeks of daily case numbers hovering in and around the triple-digits. Over the weekend, the area saw 190 infections and three additional deaths.
Since the pandemic began, the region's total case count has reached 11,213.
For the first time in six days, there were no more COVID-19 related deaths recorded locally. That leaves the death toll unchanged at 210.
There were 300 more cases involving variants of concern identified in the region since Friday, for a total of 2,028. The B.1.1.7 variant, which originated in the U.K., now accounts for 2,011 of the cases. There are 16 cases of the P.1. variant from Brazil and one case of the B.1.617 variant that originated in India. Another 281 have tested positive for a mutation.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) has 89 patients with COVID-19 in its care, including 44 who are in the intensive care unit. Of the COVID-19 patients admitted to the hospital, 31 were transferred in from other hard hit regions – seven in acute care and 24 in ICU.
Outbreaks remain at four local seniors' facilities and one daycare. The last remaining outbreak at a Western University residence has now been declared over.
Resolved cases in the city and county have risen to 10,140. Currently, there are 863 active cases in the region.
The number of new cases in Elgin and Oxford counties climbed by 58 on Monday. The number includes infections identified both Saturday and Sunday, as Southwestern Public Health does not update its COVID-19 dashboard on weekends. The latest cases bring the two counties total case count to 3,567. There was one additional death recorded over the past two days to bring the death toll to 77. It is the first time in more than two weeks the region has seen a COVID-19 related death. Outbreaks at Caressant Care Nursing home in Woodstock and Tillsonburg District Memorial Hospital have grown. There are now ten people infected at Caressant Care and 15 people with the virus at the hospital. The health unit said the total number of resolved cases in the area is 3,352, leaving 138 known active cases in the two counties.
Provincially, the number of new COVID-19 cases dropped under 2,800 - the lowest it has been since the start of April.
Public health officials reported 2,716 infections on Monday, a decrease from the 3,216 on Sunday and 2,864 on Saturday.
Regions with the most new cases were Toronto with 807, Peel with 707, York Region with 294, Durham with 168, and Hamilton with 106.
According to the province’s daily epidemiologic summary, Ontario identified 1,639 cases of the B.1.1.7. variant over the past 24 hours for a total of 93,263. There were 329 more cases of the P.1 variant for a total of 1,558, while the number of new cases of the B.1.351 variant is up by 111 for a total of 511. The daily epidemiologic summary does not currently list cases in the province of the B.1.617 variant, originally found in India.
The province’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 495,019.
Nineteen deaths were reported over the past 24 hours, to increase the province’s death toll to 8,327.
At hospitals in Ontario, there are 1,632 patients with COVID-19, a decrease of eight since Sunday. The number of infected patients in the intensive care unit is down by 20 to 828 and there are 33 fewer patients on ventilators for a total of 547.
The number of resolved cases rose by 3,110 to 454,701. There are currently 31,991 known active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, 27,175 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s current positivity rate has risen to 9.1 per cent, from 7.1 per cent the previous day.
The province has administered 6,238,778 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, as of Sunday night. A total of 393,884 people in Ontario have received their second dose of the vaccine to be considered fully inoculated. As of 8am Tuesday, eligibility for vaccination booking is expanded to include people with health conditions deemed “at-risk” and essential workers from group two of the province’s phase two vaccine rollout plan (such as grocery store, restaurant, and transportation workers). Thursday morning, eligibility at mass vaccination clinics will grow again, this time to include adults 40 and older.