The number of London hospital workers who have recently contracted COVID-19 has risen above 300 for the first time in nearly three months.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) said it currently has 321 infected staffers, up from 278 on Wednesday and 273 a week ago. The last time the number of London hospital workers who have caught the virus climbed over 300 was on January 20 when 308 workers were infected.
COVID-19 hospitalizations in London dipped slightly on Thursday. The LHSC reported it has 41 inpatients with the virus, down by four over the previous 24 hours. Hospitalizations have been above 40 everyday for the past week.
Of the 41 people currently in hospital, there are 15 being treated for COVID-19 and 26 being treated for other ailments but who have also tested positive.
Intensive care unit admissions related to the virus remained at five or fewer, as did the number of COVID-19 patients in the care of Children’s Hospital.
The Middlesex London Health Unit recorded 156 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, up from 126 on Wednesday. Daily case tallies are believed to be an underestimate of community spread since the provincial government limited eligibility for PCR testing at the end of December. The total number of cases locally since March of 2020 is now 35,468 according to the health unit.
No additional deaths were reported over the past 24 hours, leaving the local death toll at 366. The number of resolved cases is up to 34,027. Currently, there are 1,075 known active cases in the region, up from 1,003 a week ago.
Vaccination clinics in the region will be closed for part of the long weekend. The health unit stated those wishing to get the vaccine will be able to go to the mass vaccination clinic at the Western Fair District Agriplex on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. or the clinic in White Oaks Mall on Saturday from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for Elgin and Oxford counties, does not update its COVID-19 cases dashboard on Thursdays. Its next update will be released on Friday.
Provincially, the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths jumped on Thursday.
A total of 1,392 people with COVID-19 were admitted to Ontario hospitals on Thursday, up 60 over the previous day. At this time last week there were 1,126 hospitalizations, two weeks ago there were 807.
The provincial breakdown of hospitalization numbers reported on Thursday shows 45 per cent of those admitted were because of COVID-19 and 55 per cent are being treated for other reasons but also have tested positive for COVID-19.
There are 177 people with COVID-19 in intensive care units across the province, a decrease of five since Wednesday, according to the latest figures released by the province.
Public health officials said there were 4,589 new cases in Ontario on Thursday. Public health officials have cautioned that those numbers are considered an underestimate of the spread of the virus though, as the provincial government continues to restrict who is eligible for a free PCR test.
The province’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 1,209,041.
Twenty-three additional deaths related to the virus were reported on Thursday, to bring the death toll up to 12,606. The province said 20 of the latest deaths occurred over the past 30 days and three occurred more than a month ago.
The number of resolved cases rose by 3,332 to 1,163,003.
In the last 24 hour period, 23,046 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s positivity rate is now 18.1 per cent, up from 17.2 per cent a week ago and 16 per cent two weeks ago.
The province has administered 32,319,933 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, as of Wednesday night. Nearly 93 per cent of Ontarians 12 and older have received one dose of the vaccine, while 91 per cent have been given a second dose. More than 7.2 million first booster shots have been administered.