Hospitalizations from COVID-19 in the London region held steady on Tuesday.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) reported it has 36 patients admitted to hospital with the virus. That is unchanged from Monday. LHSC officials specified that 19 of the COVID-19 positive patients currently admitted are being treated for the virus. The other 17 are being treated for other ailments but have also tested positive for COVID-19.
Admissions to the intensive care unit held at five or fewer, the same level they have been at for nearly one week. Children’s Hospital has five or fewer COVID-19 positive patients in its care, with none in paediatric critical care.
The number of workers who have tested positive saw a minor increase on Tuesday. The LHSC reported 135 infected staffers, up four since the previous day. At this time last week there were 140 workers sick.
A new outbreak was declared at the LHSC. The level two outbreak is on University Hospital's U7 clinical neurosciences unit.
The Middlesex London Health Unit recorded 25 new COVID-19 infections on Tuesday. That is down from 29 on Monday. The new infections bring the total case count since March 2020 to 37,681. Daily case tallies have been considered an underestimate of community spread because of limits placed on testing eligibility at the end of last year.
For a fourth straight day, there were no additional COVID-19 deaths, leaving the local death toll at 383. Recoveries rose to 36,866. The health unit said there are 432 known active cases of the virus in the region, down 31 from Monday.
The local vaccination rate saw little movement over the past week. The latest figures released by the health unit show 93.8 per cent of area residents aged 12 and older who have received one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 91.8 per cent in the same age bracket have had two doses. Third and fourth doses have been administered to 56.7 per cent and 8.3 per cent of area residents.
As of Saturday, there have been 1,158,995 doses administered locally since December 2020.
Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for Elgin and Oxford counties, does not update its COVID-19 cases dashboard on Tuesdays. Its next update will be released on Wednesday.
COVID-19 hospitalizations and ICU admissions in Ontario saw a jump on Tuesday.
According to public health officials, there are 1,345 COVID-19 positive inpatients being treated in hospitals across the province. That is up by 223 compared to figures released on Monday. Despite the increase reported Tuesday, hospitalization figures are still lower than this time last week when 1,555 people were hospitalized with the virus.
The provincial breakdown of hospitalization numbers over the past 24 hours shows roughly 39 per cent were admitted to hospital because of COVID-19. The remaining 61 per cent were admitted for other reasons but tested positive for COVID-19.
The number of COVID-19 positive people admitted to intensive care went up by six to 165. Last Tuesday, there were 188 people in the ICU.
Ontario logged 1,028 new cases Tuesday. However, the single-day tally is less relevant since the provincial government restricted eligibility for publicly-funded COVID-19 tests. Ontario’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now stands at 1,288,557.
There were 11 additional deaths from the virus reported over the past 24 hours. The total death toll from the virus in Ontario now stands at 13,083.
Public health officials confirmed there were 12,233 COVID-19 tests processed over the past 24 hours. The test positivity rate is now 10.3 per cent, down from 12.4 per cent a week ago.
To date, the province has administered 33,124,379 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, with 91.2 per cent of people 12 and older having received two doses. More than 7.3 million people have received a booster shot.