COVID-19 hospitalizations and the death toll from the virus both rose in the London region over the long weekend.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) reported it has 41 patients admitted to hospital with the virus. That is up six from Friday. LHSC officials specified that 18 of the COVID-19 positive patients currently admitted are being treated for the virus. The other 23 are being treated for other ailments but have also tested positive for COVID-19.
For the first time in several weeks, admissions to the intensive care unit fell to zero on Tuesday. It had been sitting at five or fewer for the past two and a half weeks. The number of COVID-19 positive inpatients at Children’s Hospital went up from zero to five or fewer. None of those admitted to Children's are listed in paediatric critical care.
The number of workers who have tested positive dropped since last reported on Friday. The LHSC currently has 75 infected staffers, down 48. At this time last week there were 135 workers sick.
An outbreak of the virus remains in University Hospital’s U7 clinical neurosciences unit.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported 117 new COVID-19 cases over the Victoria Day long weekend.
There were 27 new infections logged on Tuesday, 19 new cases recorded on Monday, 26 new cases on Sunday, and 45 new cases on Saturday. However, public health officials caution that single-day case numbers are an underestimate of community spread due to eligibility changes that limit who can receive a test. The area’s total case count stands at 37,907 since the pandemic began.
There were three additional deaths added to the overall count since Friday - two on Saturday and one on Sunday. There were zero deaths recorded on Monday and Tuesday. The local death toll since the pandemic began now stands at 389.
Resolved cases are up to 37,156. The number of active cases locally went down by 23 since Friday to 362 on Tuesday.
There was little movement over the past week in the local vaccination rate. The latest figures released by the health unit show 93.8 per cent of area residents aged 12 and older 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 56.9 per cent and 9.1 per cent of area residents.
As of Saturday, there have been 1,165,656 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 slight increase on Tuesday.
According to public health officials, there are 890 COVID-19 positive inpatients being treated in hospitals across the province. That is up by 11 compared to Monday's figures. Despite the increase reported Tuesday, hospitalization figures are still lower than this time last week when 1,345 people were hospitalized with the virus.
The provincial breakdown of hospitalization numbers over the past 24 hours shows roughly 42 per cent were admitted to hospital because of COVID-19. The remaining 58 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 five to 157. Last Tuesday, there were 165 people in the ICU.
Ontario logged 619 new cases Tuesday and 668 on Monday. 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 1,296,786.
There were three additional deaths from the virus reported over the past 48 hours. The total death toll from the virus in Ontario now stands at 13,164.
Public health officials confirmed there were 12,500 COVID-19 tests processed over the past 48 hours. The test positivity rate is now 10.5 per cent, up from 10.3 per cent a week ago.
To date, the province has administered 33,242,958 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, with 91.3 per cent of people 12 and older having received two doses. More than 7.3 million people have received a booster shot.