While known COVID-19 cases in the community continue their downward trend, there was a slight rise in the number of hospitalizations from the virus on Monday.
The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) confirmed it has 26 inpatients in its care being treated for COVID-19, up two since Friday. At this time last week, there were 33 COVID positive inpatients at the LHSC. According to hospital officials, 17 of the current inpatients are being treated for the virus, while the remaining nine are being treated for other ailments but have tested positive for COVID.
The intensive care unit has six inpatients with COVID-19, up from five or fewer on Friday. Meanwhile, the number of inpatients with the virus admitted to Children’s Hospital went down from five or fewer to none.
The number of hospital workers who have tested positive for the virus also dropped on Monday. There are 68 infected staffers at the LHSC, down 15 since Friday. At this time last week, 70 hospital employees had contracted the virus.
The hospital network confirmed an outbreak at University Hospital’s U7 cardiology unit has been resolved. That leaves just one outbreak at the north London hospital on the U6 CVT unit.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported 51 new COVID-19 cases over the weekend.
There were three new cases recorded on Monday, 20 new cases on Sunday, and 28 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 38,309 since the pandemic began.
There was one additional death added to the overall count over the past 72 hours. The local death toll since the pandemic began now stands at 393.
Resolved cases are up to 37,598. The number of active cases locally went down by 54 since Friday to 318 on Monday.
Southwestern Public Health, the health unit that covers Elgin and Oxford counties, reported 23 new cases since Friday. The latest infections bring the two counties’ total case count to 13,964. There were no additional deaths recorded over the weekend, leaving the death toll at 169. The health unit said the total number of resolved cases in the area is 13,718 and there are 77 known active cases locally.
Provincially, COVID-19 hospitalizations and ICU admissions both went up.
There are currently 430 people with the virus in hospital, up 11 from Sunday. A week ago there were 611 COVID positive people in Ontario hospitals. Intensive care unit (ICU) admissions increased by five to 116. Hospitalization and ICU numbers could actually be higher than what was released Monday as not all hospitals report over the weekend, public health officials reminded.
Ontario logged 468 new infections over the past 24 hours. But single-day case counts are considered to be an underestimation of community spread as the Ford government continues to restrict eligibility for publicly-funded COVID-19 tests. The latest cases put Ontario’s total case count since the start of the pandemic to 1,308,068.
Public health officials said the death toll rose by one to 13,289 on Monday. The latest COVID-19-related death occurred more than a month ago and was added to the official total as part of a data cleanup.
The number of resolved cases are up by 669 to 1,285,895.
In the last 24 hour period, 6,289 COVID-19 tests were processed. Ontario’s positivity rate is now 7 per cent, down from 7.6 per cent a week ago.
There have been 33,433,045 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine administered in Ontario as of Sunday night. Figures indicate 93.2 per cent of Ontarians 12 and older have received one dose of the vaccine, while 91.4 per cent have been given their second dose. To date, more than 7.3 million Ontarians have received a booster shot.