Public health officials in London and Middlesex County are reporting the region's first double-digit COVID-19 case increase in nearly two weeks.
The Middlesex London Health Unit confirmed 12 new infections on Wednesday. That is up from eight each day Monday and Tuesday. The dozen new cases break an 11 day streak of only single-digit increases being recorded locally. The last time daily case counts were above 9 was on July 2 when 13 cases were logged.
Since the pandemic began, there has been a total of 12,660 cases in the city and county. Resolved cases are up by seven for a total of 12,373. There are 59 active cases in the area.
There were no additional COVID-19 related deaths locally on Wednesday, leaving the death toll unchanged at 228.
Hospitalizations in the area are down by one with 10 COVID-19 patients in the care of the London Health Sciences Centre. Of those, fewer than five are listed in intensive care. There are also fewer than five hospital employees who have tested positive for the virus.
The region is outbreak free with no outbreaks at area hospitals, seniors’ facilities, or daycares.
There were two more cases involving variants of concern in London and Middlesex County, for a total of 3,531. Of those, 3,369 have been identified as the B.1.1.7 (Alpha) strain from the U.K., 99 are the P.1. (Gamma) variant from Brazil, 55 are the B.1.617 (Delta) strain from India, and there are two cases of the B.1.351 (Beta) variant from South Africa. The health unit also noted a total of 198 cases have tested positive for a mutation.
Southwestern Public Health is reporting its first COVID-19 death in more than a month. The death recorded on Wednesday is the first in the area since June 8. It brings the region's death toll up to 84. Two more COVID-19 cases were logged over the past 24 hours, increasing the local case count since the pandemic began to 3,911. Resolved cases rose to 3,812. There are now 15 active cases in the two counties.
For a sixth consecutive day, Ontario reported fewer than 200 new COVID-19 cases.
A total of 153 new infections were confirmed on Wednesday. That is up slightly from Tuesday's 146 new cases, and Monday's 114.
Regions with the highest number of new infections over the past 24 hours were Toronto with 28, Waterloo Region with 23, Grey Bruce with 20, and Peel Region with 19.
Ontario’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 547,562.
According to public health officials, there were seven additional deaths related to the virus on Wednesday. The official death toll now stands at 9,265.
The daily epidemiologic summary indicates Ontario found ten more lab confirmed cases over the past 24 hours of the B.1.1.7. (Alpha) variant. There are now a total of 144,755 cases of that strain. Another 74 cases of the P.1. (Gamma) variant have been confirmed for a total of 4,933 and there were 16 more cases of the B.1.351(Beta) variant for a total of 1,464 in Ontario. Another 305 cases of the B.1.617 (Delta) variant were also identified for a total of 3,057.
Hospitalizations in the province have risen to 174 COVID-19 positive patients admitted. That’s up by one patient from the previous day. There are 180 patients in intensive care and 116 on ventilators.
Resolved cases across the province are up 216 to 536,819. That leaves 1,478 known active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, 29,085 COVID-19 tests were processed, up from 17,489 on Tuesday. Ontario’s positivity rate has dropped from 0.8 per cent to 0.6 per cent.
The province has administered 17,475,655 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as of Tuesday night. There are 7,283,528 people in Ontario who have received both doses of the vaccine and are considered fully inoculated.