There was a drop in the number of new cases of COVID-19 in the London region Monday, as active cases fell back below 200.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported 11 new infections on Monday, down from 22 on Sunday and 19 on Saturday. This is the area's lowest daily case increase so far this month. The last time single-day numbers were as low as they were on Monday was in mid-August.
The area’s total case count stands at 13,656 since the pandemic began.
There has not been an additional COVID-19 related death recorded locally since Saturday, when a woman in her 80s succumbed to the virus. The death toll remains at 236.
Resolved cases in the city and county are up by 17 to 13,227. Currently, there are 193 active cases in the region, the first time since last Wednesday active cases fell below 200.
There were seven additional cases involving variants of concern identified in the region Monday, increasing the total to 4,090. The Alpha B.1.1.7 variant accounts for 3,384 of the cases. There are 124 cases of the Gamma P.1. variant, two cases identified as the Beta B.1.351 variant, and 576 cases of the B.1.617 variant. There are 187 cases that have tested positive for a mutation.
An outbreak at the McCormick Home in London has been declared over, leaving no active outbreaks at area long-term care and retirement homes.
There are a total of 12 active cases at eight schools in the region. None of those cases have resulted in outbreaks being declared. Close contacts of the infected individuals have been notified and are isolated accordingly.
Late Monday evening, the Thames Valley District School Board confirmed two cases were identified at West Elgin Secondary in West Lorne and another at Southside Public in Woodstock.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) is reporting seven patients with COVID-19 in its care, down from nine on Friday. Five or fewer of those patients are listed in intensive care and five or fewer of them are at Children's Hospital. The LHSC currently has fewer than five staffers who have tested positive for the virus.
Ten more walk-in, pop-up vaccination clinics are planned this week for people who still need either their first or second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. The health unit run clinics are for anyone aged 12 or older. This week's clinics includes one that will be held daily starting Tuesday at White Oaks Mall in south London and another edition of Doses Till Dark on Richmond Row from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday. To see the full list of pop-up vaccination clinics in London and Middlesex County click here.
Of the 819 people in the London region who have contracted the virus over the past six weeks, 64.2 per cent were not vaccinated, 16 per cent were partially vaccinated, 2.8 per cent had received the vaccine but it had not yet taken effect, and 17 per cent were fully vaccinated. The unvaccinated account for 83.3 per cent of local hospitalizations and 80 per cent of the virus related deaths. Due to an error on the health unit's COVID-19 dashboard, the vaccination status of area COVID-19 deaths is incorrectly displaying as 50 per cent unvaccinated and 50 per cent vaccinated.
The number of new COVID-19 cases confirmed in Elgin and Oxford counties was 28 on Monday. That 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 4,158. There were no additional deaths recorded over the past three days, leaving the death toll unchanged at 85. There are currently no active institutional outbreaks locally. The health unit said the total number of resolved cases in the area is 4,023, leaving 50 known active cases. As of Sunday, 83.8 per cent of all people in the two counties 12 and older have received at least one dose of the vaccine, 77.7 per cent have been given both shots.
Provincially, daily cases fell quite a bit from weekend increases around 800.
Public health officials reported 600 new infections on Monday. That is down from 784 on Sunday, 857 on Saturday, and 848 on Friday.
Of the 600 cases recorded over the past 24 hours, 338 were reportedly among unvaccinated people, 44 involved partially vaccinated people, and 125 were fully vaccinated people. There were 43 COVID-positive individuals whose vaccination status was not known.
Regions with the most new cases Monday were Toronto with 114, Peel Region with 84, and York Region with 67.
The province’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 575,219.
According to the province’s daily epidemiologic summary, Ontario identified two more cases of the B.1.1.7. variant, or Alpha as it is known, since the previous day for a total of 146,452. There were no additional cases of the P.1 variant, Gamma and the B.1.351 variant, Beta, leaving the totals unchanged at 5,225 and 1,501. There were 238 more cases identified as the B.1.617 (Delta) variant, increasing the total to 14,884.
Six more COVID-19 related deaths were reported over the past 24 hours, increasing the death toll at 9,617. Two of the deaths reported on Monday actually occurred more than a month ago and were just included in the province's figures as part of a data cleanup.
At hospitals in Ontario, there are 289 patients with COVID-19. The total number of patients in the intensive care unit is up by five to 189 and the number of patients on ventilators is up by ten to 163.
The number of resolved cases rose by 627 to 559,386. There are currently 6,216 known active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, more than 19,100 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s current positivity rate sits at 3.1 per cent.
The province has administered 21,183,369 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, as of Sunday night. Just over 84 per cent of Ontarians 12 and older have received one dose of the vaccine, while 78.1 percent have been given their second dose to be considered fully inoculated. That works out to 10,179,312 people across the province who have received both shots.