The total number of confirmed novel coronavirus cases in London and Middlesex rose to 357 on Friday after health officials with the Middlesex-London Health Unit reported 10 new cases, four involving local seniors’ home residents.
Health officials also reported 10 more people have recovered, bringing that total to 173. The number of deaths remained unchanged at 26.
The health unit said three of the new cases involve local retirement home residents, while one case involves a long-term care resident. No information was released about the other six cases.
Ninety-six of the region’s confirmed cases and 12 of its deaths have been linked to long-term care or retirement homes.
As of Friday, the health unit reported that a total of 37 long-term care home residents and 20 staff had tested positive for COVID-19, while 27 retirement home residents and 12 staff had tested positive.
Eleven deaths have been reported at long-term care homes, while one has been reported at a retirement home, the health unit says.
Local seniors’ facilities have also accounted for at least 10 of the 15 COVID-19 outbreaks that have been declared in London and Middlesex over the course of the pandemic.
They’re among at least 143 COVID-19 outbreaks that have been reported at long-term care homes across the province since mid-January.
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Locally, the most recently declared outbreak was at Victoria Hospital on Tuesday in oncology (C7-400), according to London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC). It’s the second such outbreak declared at the hospital after a still-active outbreak was declared on April 11 in the geriatric behavioural unit (C6-100).
According to an LHSC spokesperson, 34 staff and physicians at University and Victoria hospitals had tested positive for COVID-19 as of Thursday. Not all of the cases could be traced back to a hospital role, the spokesperson said.
The hospitals were treating a total of 32 COVID-19 patients as of Friday, with 11 in intensive care.
Five local outbreaks — at Chelsey Park, Mount Hope Centre for Long-Term Care, Seasons Strathroy, Sprucedale Care Centre and University Hospital’s inpatient cardiology unit — have been declared over.
Outbreaks remain active at Earls Court Village, Grand Wood Park, Horizon Place, Kensington Village, Meadow Park Care Centre, Sisters of St. Joseph and St. Joseph’s Hospice.
An outbreak also remains active at Henley Place, one of four Ontario long-term care homes ordered by an Ontario Superior Court justice on Thursday to provide nurses with personal protective equipment (PPE) and to enhance isolation-related controls for residents and staff.
The order came after the Ontario Nurses’ Association filed a motion in court, arguing that its members had been working without proper PPE at the facilities and that “minimum infection control and safety measures needed to contain the uncontrollable outbreaks that are now taking place” were not being implemented.
Provincially, Ontario reported 640 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, and 50 more deaths.
That’s the largest single-day increase in new cases so far, though the growth rate in total cases remains relatively low, at five per cent.
Hospitalizations and the number of people in intensive care and on ventilators all increased in the previous day.
Ontario now has a total of 13,519 cases, including 763 deaths and 7,087 resolved cases.
Long-term care deaths, which are reported in a different database that often doesn’t sync up with the total provincial numbers, increased by 57 over the past day.
Nationally, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases across the country stood at just over 42,700 as of early Friday afternoon, including more than 15,200 recovered cases and around 2,200 deaths.
Elgin and Oxford
One more person has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, while two more people have recovered, officials with Southwestern Public Health (SWPH) reported Friday.
It brings the total number of confirmed cases to 54 and the number of recovered cases to 20.
The number of deaths remained unchanged at four.
Details about the new cases were not immediately available.
The number of active outbreaks remained unchanged at one. An outbreak at Caressant Care on Bonnie Place in St. Thomas was declared on Tuesday after a health-care worker tested positive, SWPH said.
The region’s first outbreak, declared at Beattie Manor in western Elgin on March 27, was declared over on Wednesday.
Seventeen active cases remain in Oxford County as of Friday, including four each in Blandford-Blenheim and Woodstock, while 13 remain active in Elgin, including six in St. Thomas and three in Dutton/Dunwich.
As of Friday, 1,660 COVID-19 tests had been administered in Elgin and Oxford counties, an increase of 96 from the day before, with 463 were awaiting results.
Huron and Perth
Two more people have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, while three more people have recovered, officials with Huron Perth Public Health reported Friday.
It brings the total number of confirmed cases in Huron and Perth to 41 and the number of recoveries to 25 — 60 per cent of all cases.
The number of deaths remained unchanged at four.
Details about the new cases are limited, other than that one was reported in West Perth, while the other was reported in Stratford involving a staff member of Greenwood Court, a long-term care facility.
More than half of the region’s cases, 23, have been reported in Stratford, and more than half of Stratford’s cases, 14, have been reported at Greenwood Court.
The facility, where an ongoing outbreak has left at least six residents and eight staff members infected, is also where three of Huron and Perth’s four reported deaths have taken place.
It’s not clear how many cases remain active. Another staff member had tested positive at the facility earlier in the week.
The region’s only other declared outbreak has been at Hillside Manor in Sebringville. It was declared over on April 14.
County figures show nine cases have been confirmed in Huron County, including three in South Huron, two in Bluewater and one each in Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh, Central Huron, Goderich and Huron East.
In Perth County, seven cases have been reported, including two each in Perth East, Perth South and West Perth, and one in North Perth.
Two cases, including one death, have been reported in St. Marys.
As of Friday, 1,279 COVID-19 cases had been administered in the region, an increase of 100 from Thursday, with 299 awaiting results.
Sarnia and Lambton
Four more people have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, officials with Lambton Public Health reported Friday.
It brings the total number of confirmed cases in the county to 164.
No new deaths or recoveries were reported, keeping those totals at 14 and 66, respectively.
At least 39 cases are linked to an ongoing outbreak at Sarnia’s Landmark Village, a retirement home where 30 residents and nine staff have tested positive and six residents have died.
A second outbreak was also declared on April 15 at Meadowview Villa, a county-run long-term care home in Petrolia, where one staff member has tested positive. No new cases had been confirmed there as of Thursday, according to the county.
About 18 per cent of confirmed cases involve residents of seniors’ homes, while 15 per cent involve health-care workers in the county. At least 46 per cent of confirmed cases involve patients over the age of 70, LPH figures show.
Officials with Sarnia’s Bluewater Health have confirmed that at least 14 of the county’s cases involve staff of the hospital, who are now all recovering at home.
Hospital spokesperson Julia Oosterman told 980 CFPL on Thursday that 11 staff had contracted the virus through the community — three more than earlier in the week — while four became infected through work.
The hospital was able to trace the work-acquired cases back to patients the staff members had been treating, she said. None work in the hospital’s COVID-19 or intensive care units or its emergency department.
The hospital was treating 13 COVID-19 patients as of Friday morning, the same as Thursday, as well as seven patients who were suspected positive or were awaiting tests, two more than the day before.
As of Friday, 1,377 COVID-19 tests had been administered in Lambton, an increase of 76 from the day before. The number of cases awaiting results was not immediately available.
— With files from the Canadian Press
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Symptoms can include fever, cough and difficulty breathing — very similar to a cold or flu. Some people can develop a more severe illness. People most at risk of this include older adults and people with severe chronic medical conditions like heart, lung or kidney disease. If you develop symptoms, contact public health authorities.
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