It's a record no one wanted to break.
But on Thursday the London region recorded an all-time high number of new COVID-19 cases, smashing the previous record set just one day earlier.
The Middlesex London Health Unit logged 496 new infections over the past 24 hours, up from 378 on Wednesday and 280 on Tuesday. Thursday's nearly 500 single-day case jump marks the highest recorded in the region since the pandemic began and is the sixth time this month the record high has been shattered.
Daily case numbers began to rise dramatically in London and Middlesex County on December 13, one week after public health officials confirmed the arrival of the Omicron variant in the region. Single-day case counts went from 36 new infections and 255 active cases December 6, to 75 new infections and 445 active cases on December 13. By December 17, daily case numbers had climbed into the triple-digits, where they have remained for all but one day since.
Prior to the Omicron variant fueled surge of cases, the most infections logged in the region in one day was 176, which was logged during the third wave on April 14.
The total number of cases locally since the pandemic began is now 19,107, according to the health unit.
For the second day in a row, there has been a COVID-19 death locally. A man in his 70s succumbed to the virus, increasing the death toll to 259. On Wednesday, the health unit confirmed the death of a woman in her 100s who had tested positive.
The number of resolved cases is up by 159 to 15,965. Currently, there are 2,883 active cases in the region, up 341 from the previous day.
The London Health Sciences Centre has 25 patients in its care with COVID-19, up three from Wednesday. Eight of those patients are listed in intensive care and five or fewer have been admitted to Children’s Hospital. There are 135 hospital staffers who have tested positive for the virus, 22 more than were reported a day earlier.
There are now 13 seniors' facilities dealing with COVID-19 outbreaks locally, with Dearness Home and Henley Place added to the list.
Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for Oxford and Elgin counties, has not provided a COVID-19 case update since last Friday.
Provincially, the daily number of COVID-19 cases reached nearly 14,000, smashing the previous single-day record high.
Public health officials said there were 13,807 new cases on Thursday. That is up from 10,436 infections logged on Wednesday, 8,825 new cases recorded on Tuesday, and 9,418 new cases confirmed on Monday. The rolling seven-day average daily case count is now 10,327, the highest it has been to date.
The province did not release a breakdown of the latest cases by vaccination status on Thursday.
The province’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 739,648.
Eight additional deaths related to the virus were reported on Thursday. The province’s death toll is currently 10,179.
At hospitals in Ontario, there are 965 people with COVID-19 on general wards, up 239 from the previous day. The number of people in the intensive care unit was unchanged at 200, and there are 104 people on ventilators – the same as Wednesday.
Of those on general hospital wards with COVID-19, 206 are not fully vaccinated and 399 have received both doses.
The number of resolved cases rose by 4,037 to 642,715. There are currently 86,754 known, active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, 67,301 tests COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s positivity rate is now around 30.5 per cent, the highest it has ever been.
The province has administered 27,012,866 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, as of Wednesday night. There are more than 11.4 million people in Ontario who have received the second dose of the vaccine to be considered fully inoculated. More than 3.3 million have received a booster shot.