There was a slight drop in the number of new COVID-19 cases reported in the London area on Thursday.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported 13 new infections over the past 24 hours, down from 26 on Wednesday. The two days of double digit increases came after just seven cases were logged on Tuesday.
The region’s total number of cases since the pandemic began is now 12,487, according to the health unit.
The local death toll was unchanged at 223 with no additional deaths recorded over the past two days.
Hospitalizations in the area were held steady on Thursday with 19 COVID-19 patients admitted to the London Health Sciences Centre. There are nine COVID-19 patients listed in intensive care. The number of COVID-19 patients transferred to the LHSC from outside of the region remains low with fewer than five in acute care and fewer than five in intensive care. An outbreak of the virus continues on University Hospital's 8TU transplant unit. There are currently fewer than five hospital employees who have contracted COVID-19 and are isolating.
There were 28 more cases involving variants of concern in London and Middlesex County, for a total of 3,411. The majority of variants identified in the area are the B.1.1.7 (Alpha) strain from the U.K. The health unit also noted 195 cases have tested positive for a mutation.
Area seniors’ facilities, schools, and child care centres are currently outbreak free.
There were 18 more recoveries reported over the past 24 hours to bring the number of resolved cases to 12,155. Currently, there are 109 active cases in the region.
The health unit has announced it will begin holding pop-up community vaccination clinics in select schools in London and Middlesex County beginning next week. The temporary sites are intended for people in need of their first dose who have been unable to make it to the region's mass vaccination clinics. They will offer both scheduled and walk-in appointments. The pop-up sites will operate from 1:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
The number of new cases in Elgin and Oxford counties went from five to four on Thursday. Southwestern Public Health said the latest cases bring the two counties’ total caseload to 3,847. There were no COVID-19 related deaths in the region leaving the death toll at 83. The total number of resolved cases stands at 3,737 and there are 27 known active cases locally.
Provincially, new infections remained above 300, but the positivity rate hit a low not seen since October.
Public health officials said there were 370 new cases on Thursday. That is a decrease from the 384 logged on Wednesday, but an increase from 296 Tuesday. The seven-day average daily case count is now 443, down from 618 at this time last week.
Regions with the most new cases were Toronto with 67, Waterloo with 57, Peel with 47, and Ottawa with 34.
The province’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 541,180.
According to the province’s daily epidemiologic summary, Ontario identified 366 cases of the B.1.1.7 (Alpha) variant over the past 24 hours for a total of 141,472. Thirty-one more cases of the P.1 (Gamma) variant were found for a total of 4,187, while the number of new cases of the B.1.351(Beta) variant went up by three for a total of 1,144. There were 89 new cases involving the B.1.617 (Delta) variant for a total of 586.
Seven deaths were reported on Thursday, to increase the province’s death toll to 8,993.
At hospitals in Ontario, there are 397 patients with COVID-19, a decrease of 41 from the previous day. Of those in hospital, 362 are in intensive care and 232 are on ventilators.
The number of resolved cases rose by 370 to 541,180. There are currently 4,390 known active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, 30,454 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s positivity rate went from 1.5 per cent to 1.3 per cent on Thursday. That is the lowest it has been since October 2.
The province has administered 11,943,025 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, as of Wednesday night. There have been more than 2.3 million people in Ontario who have received their second dose of the vaccine to be considered fully inoculated. The provincial government announced on Thursday plans to allow all adults over the age of 18 to fast track their second dose appointment as of June 28.
Appointment for second dose mRNA COVID-19 vaccines Pfizer and Moderna will be scheduled at least 28 days after the first dose as per the recommended interval, the province said.
Second shot intervals for people who received AstraZeneca as their first dose were accelerated earlier this week to eight weeks, down from 12 weeks.