While COVID-19 hospitalizations in the London region went down slightly on Friday, the number of people to die from the virus went up by two.
The Middlesex London Health Unit confirmed a woman in her 70s and a man in his 60s, neither of whom were associated with a long-term care or retirement home, succumbed to the virus. According to the health unit, the woman was fully vaccinated while the man had not received a single shot. Their deaths are the seventh and eighth to be reported since last weekend. The local death toll now stands at 267 since the pandemic began in March 2020.
Another 253 new COVID-19 cases were recorded over the past 24 hours in the city and county. That is down from 323 on Thursday. However, the Middlesex London Health Unit has noted that single-day case counts are likely an underestimate of the true number of people in the region with the virus, due to changes made late last month to testing eligibility.
The local total of infections since the pandemic began now sits at 25,493.
The number of resolved cases rose by 780 to 22,094. There are 3,132 known active cases in the region, down 516 over the past 24 hours.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) has 132 COVID-19 inpatients in its care, down two from Thursday. Of those, 21 are listed in intensive care. That is down three over the past 24 hours.
The LHSC noted 78 of the 132 COVID-19 positive people in its care were admitted for treatment of the virus. The 54 remaining people came to the hospital for other reasons and tested positive for the virus.
The number of hospital staff who tested positive for the virus has gone up slightly. There are now 511 employees infected, up from 509 on Thursday.
Three outbreaks remain at the LHSC. On University Hospital’s 7IP Clinical Neurosciences (wings 100, 202, 204, 210, 220-232, and 300) there are 18 confirmed patient cases and 16 potential staff infections. On the same hospital's A9 Inpatients Unit (corridors 100 and 200) there are 14 confirmed patient cases and 10 confirmed staff cases. On Victoria Hospital’s Adult Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit seven patients are confirmed to have contracted COVID-19, as have a possible 16 staffers.
The province's mobile vaccination clinic makes its third stop in London over the weekend. The GO-VAXX bus mobile COVID-19 vaccination clinic will be at the East Lions Community Centre parking lot at 1731 Churchill Ave. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. Appointments for first, second, and third doses are required and can be booked through the provincial website as of 8 a.m. on Saturday.
In Elgin and Oxford counties, there were 118 new COVID-19 cases reported Friday. Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for the region, said that brings the local total number of cases to 8,942 with 7,685 resolved. The death toll has risen to 128 with one additional death recorded over the past 24 hours. There are currently 1,129 active cases in the two counties.
Ontario recorded a jump in the number of people in hospital with COVID-19 on Friday.
Public health officials confirmed there are currently 3,814 COVID-19 positive people in hospitals across the province.That is up from 3,630 the previous day. Of the 3,814, roughly 53 per cent were admitted because of the virus, while 47 per cent were admitted for other reasons and tested positive for the virus.
In intensive care units, there are 527 patients with COVID-19, up 27 from Thursday.
Ontario logged 10,964 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday. That is up from 9,909 new infections Thursday. Public health officials have cautioned the daily counts are an underestimate of the spread of the virus in the province due to recent changes to PCR testing eligibility.
Ontario’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now stands at 926,904.
There were 42 additional deaths reported over the past 24 hours, increasing the provincial death toll to 10,522. The province said 41 of those deaths happened over the past month and one was from more than a month ago.
The number of resolved cases are up by 21,672 to 804,886.
In the last 24 hour period, 58,031 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s positivity rate is now 21.8 per cent.
To date, the province has administered 29,180,320 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, with more than 89 per cent of people 12 and older having received both shots required to be fully inoculated. More than 5.3 million Ontarians have received a booster shot.