The Middlesex London Health Unit recorded a slight dip in the daily COVID-19 case count on Friday.
Eleven new infections were logged over the past 24 hours. The new cases are a decrease from the 16 new cases Thursday and 13 cases Wednesday. It is the fifth time so far this month the number of new cases recorded have been below 15.
The city and county’s total caseload since the pandemic began now sits at 14,266.
There has not been a COVID-19 related death in the area since last Sunday. That leaves the death toll unchanged at 243.
The number of resolved cases rose by 22 to 13,892. There are 131 known active cases in the region, down 11 from Thursday.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) has nine COVID-19 inpatients in its care, down four from Thursday. Of those, five or fewer are listed in intensive care and none are admitted to Children’s Hospital. Currently, there are no hospital staff who have tested positive for the virus.
The number of cases involving variants of concern identified in the area went up by three to 4,272 on Friday. All three new cases are of the B.1.617 (Delta) variant for a total of 758. There has not been a single new case of the B.1.1.7 (Alpha) variant, P.1 (Gamma) variant, or the B.1.351 (Beta) variant this week.
Schools across the region are dealing with three outbreaks and 32 active cases at 21 facilities. The outbreaks involve Ryerson Public School, London Christian High, and St. Kateri Elementary School. There are currently eight active cases within the Catholic board and 17 active cases in the Thames Valley District school board.
Just under 75 per cent of the 718 new COVID-19 cases reported since September 3 were among people who were not yet fully vaccinated. The unvaccinated and those who have only received one dose accounted for 71 per cent of all hospitalizations locally over the last six weeks.
In Elgin and Oxford counties, there were 24 new COVID-19 cases reported Friday, up from 12 the previous day. Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for the region, said that brings the local total number of cases to 4,482 with 4,302 resolved. For the second straight day another COVID-19 death was recorded. The area's death toll is now 89. As of Thursday, 86.4 per cent of area residents aged 12 and older have had one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 82.1 per cent have received both doses.
Ontario recorded nearly 500 new COVID-19 cases and two additional deaths on Friday.
Public health officials confirmed 496 new infections over the past 24 hours, up from 417 cases logged on Thursday. There were 306 new cases on Wednesday, 390 on Tuesday, and 458 on Monday.
Preliminary data shows of the 496 new cases reported in Ontario over the past 24 hours, 280 were not vaccinated, 20 had received one dose, and 162 were fully vaccinated. There were 34 infected individuals whose vaccination status was not known.
Toronto had the province’s highest daily number of cases Friday with 74, followed by Peel Region with 60, and Ottawa and Windsor-Essex with 40 each.
Ontario’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now stands at 593,933.
There were two additional deaths reported to bring the provincial death toll up to 9,809.
Hospitals in Ontario have 265 COVID-19 positive patients admitted to general wards. There are 163 patients in intensive care and 134 are on ventilators. Of those on the general wards, 97 were unvaccinated, nine were partially vaccinated, and 37 were fully vaccinated. Only 15 of those in ICU were fully vaccinated.
The number of resolved cases are up by 542 to 580,150. There are currently 3,974 active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, 35,905 COVID-19 tests were processed, up from 35,421 the previous day. Ontario’s positivity rate remained at 1.4 per cent.
To date, the province has administered 22,177,830 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, with more than 10.7 million people having received both shots required to be fully inoculated.