The number of new COVID-19 cases in Middlesex London slipped below 20 Tuesday, the same day the region’s monthly death toll doubled.
The Middlesex London Health Unit reported 17 new infections and two COVID-19 related deaths over the past 24 hours. The latest COVID-19 cases mark only the fourth time this month daily infections have been below 20.
“We’ve come a long way since the Dec. 26th lockdown. With stay-at-home orders ending on Tuesday, let’s remain just as vigilant in the coming weeks as we have throughout this most recent stretch,” London Mayor Ed Holder tweeted.
The health unit listed the two additional deaths as a woman in her 80s who resided in long-term care and a man in his 60s who was not associated with an assisted living facility. Their deaths are the third and fourth to be reported locally in February. The region’s total death toll now stands at 179.
Six area long-term care and retirement homes have ongoing outbreaks of the virus and half a dozen schools, five in London and one in Strathroy, have one confirmed case each. The latest schools to identify infections are Caradoc North Public, Clara Brenton Public, and Westminster Secondary.
While there are no outbreaks at the London Health Sciences Centre, there are 20 inpatients with COVID-19 in the hospital’s care. Six of those patients are listed in the intensive care unit.
Middlesex-London saw 37 more people recover from the virus since Monday, increasing the number of resolved cases to 3,946. Currently, the region has 1,788 known active cases.
Southwestern Public Health recorded two new infections and two COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday. That puts Elgin and Oxford counties’ caseload up to 2,391 and the death toll to 65. Resolved cases rose to 2,209, leaving 117 active cases between the two counties. The massive outbreak that infected 85 residents and 55 staff members and claimed 20 lives at Maple Manor Nursing Home in Tillsonburg has been declared over. That leaves five other facilities dealing with outbreaks.
Ontario has logged its lowest number of new daily COVID-19 cases since November.
According public health officials, 1,022 new infections were confirmed on Tuesday. That is down from 1,265 on Monday and is the fewest number of cases in a single day since early November when 1,003 new infections were recorded. That excludes figures from February 2 when only 745 cases were reported due to a data issue that failed to include any numbers from Toronto Public Health.
Tuesday also marked the fourth consecutive day the province has had under 1,500 new cases.
Regions with the highest case counts were Toronto with 343, followed by Peel and York Region with 250 and 128 cases.
The daily epidemiologic summary indicates Ontario has had a total of 227 cases of the more contagious U.K. variant, known as B.1.1.7. There have been three confirmed cases of the South African variant, known as B.1.351 and one case of the Brazil variant, P.1.
The province’s total case count since the start of the pandemic now sits at 280,494.
Seventeen deaths were reported over the past 24 hours, including seven in long-term care homes. The province’s death toll is now 6,555.
Ontario’s hospitals are currently dealing with 909 patients with COVID-19. Of those, 318 are in intensive care and 223 are on ventilators.
Resolved cases across the province are up to 259,991. That leaves 13,948 known active cases of the virus in Ontario.
In the last 24 hour period, more than 30,000 COVID-19 tests were processed, up from 28,303 the previous day. Ontario’s current positivity rate is 3.3 per cent.
The province has administered 398,633 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as of 8 p.m. Monday. A total of 115,529 people in Ontario have received their second dose of the vaccine and are considered fully inoculated.
