For a 13th straight day, single-day COVID-19 numbers in the London region have been in the double-digits.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported 12 new infections on Monday, down from 18 on Sunday and 21 on Saturday. There have only been three other days recorded this month in which daily new case numbers were lower - September 13 and 14 with 11 and seven cases and last Friday with 11 infections.
The area’s total case count stands at 13,947 since the pandemic began.
There has not been an additional COVID-19 related death recorded locally since last Tuesday, when a man in his 40s succumbed to the virus. The death toll remains at 238.
Resolved cases in the city and county are up by 21 to 13,540. Currently, there are 169 active cases in the region, down nine since the previous day.
There were ten additional cases involving variants of concern identified in the region Monday, increasing the total to 4,247. 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 733 cases of the Delta B.1.617 variant. There are 188 cases that have tested positive for a mutation.
Institutional outbreaks at Earls Court Village and at Oakcrossing Retirement Living in London have been resolved. There are now no local long-term care or retirement homes dealing with an outbreak.
There are five schools in the region dealing with COVID-19 outbreaks. The latest outbreaks have been confirmed at Lord Elgin Public and Wilfrid Jury Public in London. Both schools reported new COVID-19 cases over the weekend for a total of six infections at Lord Elgin and two at Wilfrid Jury. The Thames Valley District School Board has 27 active cases at 20 schools, while the Catholic District School Board reports eight cases at six of its schools. Close contacts of the infected individuals have been notified and are isolating accordingly. All schools remain open.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) is reporting 13 patients with COVID-19 in its care, up from 11 on Friday. Six of those patients are listed in intensive care and five or fewer are at Children’s Hospital. The LHSC currently has fewer than five staffers who have tested positive for the virus.
As of Tuesday, operation hours at the Caradoc Community Centre mass vaccination clinic in Mount Brydges are being slashed. The facility had been offering shots to people Tuesday to Saturday each week since August 17. It will now only be running from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Fourteen 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 include daily vaccination hours at White Oaks Mall in south London and pop-ups at schools throughout London. To see the full list of pop-up vaccination clinics in London and Middlesex County click here.
Of the 871 people in the London region who have contracted the virus over the past six weeks, 68.5 per cent were not vaccinated, 10.8 per cent were partially vaccinated, 3.7 per cent had received the vaccine but it had not yet taken effect, and 17 per cent were fully vaccinated. The unvaccinated account for 79.4 percent of local hospitalizations.
The number of new COVID-19 cases confirmed in Elgin and Oxford counties was 19 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 4,262. There were no additional deaths recorded over the past three days, leaving the death toll unchanged at 86. There are currently no active institutional outbreaks locally. The health unit said the total number of resolved cases in the area is 4,144, leaving 32 known active cases. As of Sunday, 85.4 per cent of all people in the two counties 12 and older have received at least one dose of the vaccine, 80 per cent have been given both shots.
Provincially, daily cases were under 700 for a third consecutive day.
Public health officials reported 613 new infections on Monday. That is down from 654 on Sunday and 640 on Saturday. There were 727 cases logged on Friday.
Of the 613 cases recorded over the past 24 hours, 350 were reportedly among unvaccinated people, 35 involved partially vaccinated people, and 159 were fully vaccinated people. There were 69 COVID-positive individuals whose vaccination status was not known.
Regions with the most new cases Monday were Toronto with 117, Peel Region with 70, York Region with 48, and Hamilton with 46.
The province’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 584,541.
According to the province’s daily epidemiologic summary, Ontario removed one case of the B.1.1.7. variant, or Alpha as it is known, since the previous day. That lowers the total to 146,460. There were no additional cases of the P.1 variant, Gamma and the B.1.351 variant, Beta, leaving the totals unchanged at 5,229 and 1,502. There were 37 more cases identified as the B.1.617 (Delta) variant, increasing the total to 18,297.
No additional COVID-19 related deaths were reported over the past 24 hours, leaving the death toll at 9,704.
At hospitals in Ontario, there are 186 patients with COVID-19, down by 12 from Sunday. The total number of patients in the intensive care unit is up by seven to 184 and the number of patients on ventilators is up by six to 157.
The number of resolved cases rose by 578 to 569,211. There are currently 5,626 known active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, more than 22,600 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s current positivity rate sits at 2 per cent.
The province has administered 21,672,304 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, as of Sunday night. Nearly 86 per cent of Ontarians 12 and older have received one dose of the vaccine, while just over 80 per cent have been given their second dose to be considered fully inoculated. That works out to 10,474,837 people across the province who have received both shots.