The Middlesex London Health Unit is reporting another COVID-19 death.
Public health officials announced the death of a man in his 70s on Wednesday. The man was not associated with a long-term care or retirement home. No other details about him, including his vaccination status were released. His death is the sixth linked to the virus this month. The other deaths recorded in September were among three men in their 40s, 50s and 60s and two women in their 30s and 80s. All but the elderly woman were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated.
The region’s death toll now sits at 239.
Thirteen new infections were logged on Wednesday, down from 16 on Tuesday but up from 12 on Monday. The area’s total case count since the pandemic began is 13,977.
Resolved cases are up by 21 to 13,586. There are currently 153 active cases locally, down from 160 the previous day.
Hospitalizations in the area are up slightly with 15 COVID-19 patients in the care of the London Health Sciences Centre. Of those, seven are listed in intensive care and five or fewer are in Children’s Hospital. There are also five or fewer hospital employees who have tested positive for the virus.
An outbreak of COVID-19 has forced the Thames Valley District school board to pivot students at Lord Elgin public school to online learning. The board closed the Victoria Drive school on Wednesday as the number of cases associated with the outbreak increased to 11. The school is expected to reopen next Tuesday. École élémentaire La Pommeraie, Ekcoe Central, and Wilfrid Jury Public are the only other schools in the region dealing with outbreaks. All three of those schools remain open to in-person learning.
There were no additional cases involving variants of concern in London and Middlesex County, leaving the total at 4,250. The B.1.617 (Delta) strain has been the only variant detected in the region over the past few weeks with 736 cases total. There have been a total of 3,384 cases of the B.1.1.7 (Alpha) strain, 124 cases of the P.1. (Gamma) variant, and two cases of the B.1.351 (Beta) strain in the region since the health unit began tracking variants of the virus.
Of the 835 new cases logged over the past six weeks, 82.3 per cent are among people who are either not vaccinated, not fully vaccinated or have not reached full immunity.
Southwestern Public Health reported nine more COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, increasing the local case count since the pandemic began to 4,274. The death toll was unchanged at 86 with no additional deaths recorded since last Thursday. Resolved cases rose to 4,156. There are now 32 active cases in the two counties.
For a second day in a row, new COVID-19 cases in Ontario have been under 500.
A total of 495 new infections were confirmed on Wednesday. That is up from Tuesday’s 466, but down from Monday’s 613, and Sunday’s 654.
Of the latest 495 new cases, 302 were among unvaccinated people, 36 involved partially vaccinated people, 115 were fully vaccinated individuals, and 42 had unknown vaccination status.
Regions with the highest number of new infections over the past 24 hours were Toronto with 107, Ottawa and Hamilton with 39 each, York Region with 35, and Peel Region and Windsor-Essex with 33 each.
Ontario’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 585,502.
According to public health officials, there were eight additional deaths related to the virus recorded Wednesday. The official death toll now stands at 9,723.
The daily epidemiologic summary indicates there are four more cases believed to be the B.1.1.7. (Alpha) variant. There are now a total of 146,465 cases of that strain in the province. The number of cases of the P.1. (Gamma) variant went down by one to 5,228. The B.1.351(Beta) variant was unchanged with a total of 1,502. Another 61 cases of the B.1.617 (Delta) variant were also identified for a total of 18,569.
Hospitalizations in the province have dropped to 292 COVID-19 positive patients. That’s down by 23 patients from the previous day. There are 172 people in intensive care, down eight from Tuesday and the number of people on a ventilator is down by three to 149.
The latest figures from the Ministry of Health shows of the patients with COVID-19 on general hospital wards, 123 were unvaccinated, seven have had one dose, and 32 were fully vaccinated. Of those in the ICU, 109 are not fully vaccinated and eight have received both doses.
Resolved cases across the province are up 760 to 570,790. That leaves 4,989 known active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, 36,404 COVID-19 tests were processed, up from 23,785 the previous day. Ontario’s positivity rate is now 1.7 per cent – the lowest it has been since early August.
The province has administered just over 21.7 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as of Tuesday night. There are more than 10.5 million people in Ontario who have received both doses of the vaccine and are considered fully inoculated.