In just over a week, the London region has set, tied and broken its record high for daily COVID-19 cases repeatedly, and Saturday is no exception. The record was set amid news the vaccine could arrive in London in days.
The Middlesex-London Health Unit (MLHU) is reporting 87 new cases and four deaths in the region Saturday.
The region had already set a new record high of 53 cases last week, and matched it twice this week. 67 cases were recorded on Friday.
Saturday’s cases bring the total in the region to 2,409, with 1,898 resolved and 86 deaths.
The four deaths reported are all women – in their 70s, 80s and two in their 90s.
During a virtual media briefing Thursday, MLHU Medical officer of Health Dr. Chris Mackie said the second wave continues to batter our community.
On a positive note, Ontario announced Friday that the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) will be among the nearly 20 hospitals to receive the vaccine next.
The news comes as the number of active outbreaks at LHSC’s University Hospital dropped to five Friday, after the outbreak in the 10th Floor Epilepsy Monitoring Unit was declared over. In total outbreaks in five units have now been cleared.
LHSC is reporting a total of 76 patient and 77 staff cases associated with the University Hospital outbreaks, with no new cases in the past 24 hours and no new deaths, with that total holding at 17 on Friday.
There are also two ongoing outbreaks in units at Victoria Hospital, and while there are fewer than five staff or five patient cases, LHSC is reporting a death associated with the outbreaks, the first connected to the outbreaks there.
That death was not included in the daily totals provided by the MLHU on Friday.
In terms of active cases, LHSC says there are 20 inpatients and 33 staff still positive for COVID-19 associated with all the outbreaks on Friday.
There are also ongoing outbreaks at four seniors’ facilities, five London-area schools and two residences at Western University.
Meanwhile Elgin and Oxford counties, the areas covered by Southwestern Public Health, were just three cases shy of beating the record 33 daily cases set on Thursday.
Here is where the cases stand in the region based on the most recent publicly available data, no new deaths were reported Friday:
• Elgin-Oxford – 31 new, 160 active, 894 total, 727 resolved, 11 deaths
• Sarnia-Lambton – 20 new, 49 active, 497 total, 411 resolved, 28 deaths
• Haldimand-Norfolk – seven new, 61 active, 769 total, 676 resolved, 33 deaths
• Grey-Bruce – three new, 422 total, 393 resolved, no deaths
• Huron-Perth – eight new, 64 active, 513 total, 429 resolved, 20 deaths
An outbreak in Listowel Memorial Hospital’s second floor medicine unit that started Wednesday with three patient and seven staff cases has grown to four patient and eight staff cases on Friday.
The hospital says it is working closely with Huron Perth Public Health to respond to the outbreak, with testing for all staff and doctors, limited admissions to the unit and new admissions being transferred to the hospital in Wingham.
Ontario has logged more than 2,300 new cases of COVID-19, as well as 27 more deaths.
Provincial health officials recorded 2,357 new infections of the novel coronavirus on Saturday, which is a slight increase from the 2,290 cases logged on Friday.
Before that, 2,432 new cases were confirmed on Thursday, 2,139 on Wednesday and 2,275 on Tuesday.
