Fourteen people, 10 of them Western students, have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, while two people have recovered and two new outbreaks have been declared at local seniors’ homes, officials with the Middlesex-London Health Unit (MLHU) reported Friday.
It brings the region’s total case count to 839, of which 689 people have recovered. Fifty-seven people have died, a tally unchanged since June 12.
Friday marks the fourth time in a week and a half that the region has reported double-digit case increases in a single day — the others being Sept. 23, Sept. 17, and Sept. 16.
It comes as the region continues to grapple with a notable increase in cases this month, part of a local second wave of the coronavirus, health officials have said.
All 14 cases reported Friday are from London, Ont., health unit figures show. Eight cases involve people aged 19 and under, five involve people in their 20s, and one involves someone in their 60s.
So far this month, at least 38 of the 107 cases reported in the region have involved people aged 19 or under, while 46 cases have involved people in their 20s.
Nine of Friday’s cases became infected through close contact, and one through an outbreak. Two cases have their exposure source listed as pending, while two have no known link.
Health officials reported three new cases, one recovery, and one new outbreak on Thursday, and reported 12 new cases and two recoveries on Wednesday. Seven cases and one recovery were reported Tuesday, and five cases and two recoveries on Monday.
No new cases have been reported at local elementary or secondary schools, according to the province. One case has been reported so far involving a student at H.B. Beal Secondary School.
At least two cases have been reported involving students who are removed from the school system and are learning from home.
Of the 14 cases reported on Friday, 10 are Western students, according to Dr. Chris Mackie, the region’s medical officer of health.
“We’re in the range of 60 cases from Western University,” he said Friday of the overall total linked to students.
At least 40 cases in the region, including some who aren’t students, have been linked to two community outbreaks declared last week by the health unit.
An outbreak involving a large house party on the weekend of the 12th has been tied to at least 23 cases.
Meanwhile, “Western Student Outbreak Alpha,” the first student-associated outbreak to be declared by the health unit, has been linked to at least 17 cases. The outbreak, declared Sept. 13, has been largely traced back to three households, with a night out at a downtown nightclub and subsequent hangouts at off-campus residences serving as main infection points.
Mackie said it wasn’t clear if the 10 student cases reported Friday were linked to the house party outbreak or an entirely new outbreak.
“It really depends on how the contact tracing goes with the folks involved. That’s something we should know within the next day or two,” he said.
“It looks like there still is some degree of partying that’s happening, not surprisingly on one level. We certainly have seen a lot of reduced activities in bars and restaurants that were previously crowded, so big thanks to them for making sure that they can operate safely,” he continued.
“We know that a lot of Western students are choosing not to party. We’ll see what happens this weekend. Let’s hope that it’s not a heavy weekend from the perspective of FOCO and the other student parties that might be planned.”
Western University announced Friday that it’s on-campus testing would be moved into the Western Student Recreation Centre from the testing trailer it had been using.
Starting Monday, the university says students, staff, and faculty will be able to get a COVID-19 test there without an appointment.
The city’s two assessment centres have continued to see significant capacity issues over the last two weeks since the local case tally began to grow. Friday was no different.
Londoners who ventured out to the city’s Carling Heights assessment centre Friday morning found themselves out of luck after the facility reached capacity an hour before it was officially set to open. The news was announced by the health unit on Twitter.
On the other side of the city, one Twitter user wrote they had visited the Oakridge Arena assessment centre at 7:45 a.m. only to find it out of capacity and with no more appointment tickets available. The testing centre opens at 9 a.m. during the week.
It marks the first time that both facilities have hit capacity before opening. On Thursday, both Carling Heights and Oakridge Arena reached capacity before noon for the first time during the pandemic.
The early closures are being blamed on staffing issues and the unexpected breakdown of testing instruments at London Health Sciences Centre’s (LHSC) testing lab, which limited the centre’s testing abilities.
Health unit figures show that a total of 432 clients were seen at both centres on Thursday, a steep decline from the record 837 that were seen Wednesday, the same day both facilities reported more than 400 client visits each.
In a statement early Friday afternoon, LHSC, which operates the two assessment centres alongside Thames Valley Family Health Team, said the critical repairs created a one-day processing backlog that was expected to be resolved by Monday.
Both Carling Heights and Oakridge Arena now have a ticketing system in place that allows people to return at a later time to get tested. An appointment booking system is expected to be in place early next month.
Both centres have been plagued by capacity issues and hours-long wait times since early last week.
In a bid to resolve that, Mayor Ed Holder issued a plea to the province Thursday asking them to expand to London its plan to begin coronavirus testing in pharmacies.
It appears the plea may have worked.
On Friday, Premier Doug Ford announced that the province was expanding pharmacy coronavirus testing to additional cities, including London.
It’s not clear yet which pharmacies in the city will begin offering the testing, which is expected to start as early as Tuesday.
In a statement, Holder said the city would share that information as soon as it was revealed, and that more locations would “soon be added throughout the city.”
“This is really something where I need to thank the mayor. He has been a very strong ally through this and his willingness to pick up the phone and call the premier is such an amazing asset in our fight against COVID,” Mackie said of the news.
Two additional institutional outbreaks have been added to the region’s total while one outbreak has been declared over, the health unit says.
The two outbreaks, both declared on Thursday, are located at Meadow Park Care Centre in its blue and yellow units, and at Peoplecare Oak Crossing in its Red Oak area.
Two active outbreaks also remain at Country Terrace, declared Sept. 23, and at Ashwood Manor Retirement Home, declared Sept. 21. Both outbreaks are facility-wide.
Meantime, the outbreak declared Sept. 9 on the fourth floor of Chelsey Park Retirement Community has been declared over. The outbreak was considered resolved as of Thursday.
It’s unclear how many cases are linked to the five recent outbreaks.
At least 32 institutional outbreaks have been declared in the region, including 26 at seniors’ facilities. They have been tied to 197 cases involving residents and staff and 35 deaths.
“It is not surprising. It is very concerning. We’re working closely with those facilities,” Mackie said Thursday, noting the changing weather means more people inside and more opportunity for the virus to spread.
“There are a lot of things where we have more experience now in terms of infection control expertise in those facilities. Now, the staff all have lots of experience in training, we have better pipelines for personal protective equipment. We’re not going to see the sort of mask shortages, for example, that we did in the spring.”
The region’s seven-day average for new cases stood at 7.0 as of Friday. Looking back to Sept. 11, the 14-day average is 6.92. The region’s incident rate stood at 165.3 per 100,000 people, while Ontario’s was 326.3.
By age, health unit figures show people in their 20s account for the most number of cases, with 196, or about 23.3 per cent.
People in their 50s make up 116 of the region’s cases, or about 14 per cent, while those in their 30s and those 80 and above make up 13 per cent of cases with 111 and 110, respectively.
Those aged 19 and under make up 69 cases — at least 38 of those are from this month.
No new hospitalizations were reported Friday, but it’s unclear how many, if any, there are in the region. Real-time data is not released by the health unit, and LHSC will only issue a tally if patient cases rise above five.
A total of 115 people have been hospitalized, including 32 who have needed intensive care.
Ontario
Provincially, Ontario reported 409 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday and one new death.
Health Minister Christine Elliott says 65 per cent of the new cases are in people under the age of 40.
She says 204 new cases are in Toronto, while 66 are in Peel Region, and 40 are in Ottawa.
The province is also reporting 29 new COVID-19 cases related to schools, including at least 10 among students.
Those bring the number of schools with a reported case to 198 out of Ontario’s 4,828 publicly-funded schools.
The province says it processed 41,865 tests over the previous day, with another 65,227 under investigation.
Bars and restaurants in the province are being forced to shut down earlier, and all strip clubs in Ontario are being closed in a bid to curb rising COVID-19 rates in the province.
The government says bars and restaurants will be required to close at midnight, except for takeout and delivery, and will have to stop serving alcohol by 11 p.m.
The province is also ordering all strip clubs to close.
Health Minister Christine Elliott says the tighter regulations will help limit the potential for exposure in places where the risk of transmission is higher.
The move comes after the province changed the rules surrounding social gatherings last week, lowering the number of people permitted at private outdoor events to 25 and indoor events to 10.
Elgin and Oxford
One recovery has been reported by officials with Southwestern Public Health.
At least 263 cases have been reported in the region during the pandemic, of which now 252 have recovered. Five people have also died, a tally unchanged since early July.
The recovery was reported in Woodstock, which now has five active cases. One active case remains in Central Elgin.
Health officials reported one recovery each on Thursday, Wednesday, and Tuesday, and reported no change between Monday and Friday.
Of the region’s six active cases, the health unit says none are in hospital. At least 23 have been hospitalized since March, including 11 who’ve needed intensive care.
Three of the region’s active cases involve people in their 20s. One is in their 50s, one in their 60s, and one in their 80s. Four are male and two are female.
People in their 50s account for the largest age group of cases with 51, followed by people in their 20s with 48 and people in their 40s with 38.
Four of the region’s active cases became infected through close contact, while two are under investigation.
Overall, close contact is to blame for at least 106 cases in the region, while 39 are linked to workplaces, 27 to health-care workers, 25 to travel, and 13 to social gatherings. Fifty-five are listed as unknown.
By region, Aylmer remains at the top of the total case count list, reporting as many as 82 since the start of the pandemic — a large number of them in July and August.
Elsewhere, 38 cases have been in Bayham, 37 in St. Thomas, 30 in Woodstock, 25 in Tillsonburg and 10 in Dutton/Dunwich.
A total of four institutional outbreaks have been declared, with all since resolved. No deaths are linked to them.
The health unit says its test per cent positivity rate for the week of Sept. 13, the most recent that data is available, was 0.2 per cent. About 2,402 people were tested that week.
Huron and Perth
One recovery was reported Friday by officials with Huron Perth Public Health, bringing the region’s active case tally to zero.
The region’s total case count remains at 127, of which now 122 have recovered. Five people have also died.
Health officials reported no change Thursday, Wednesday, or Tuesday, and reported two recoveries on Monday.
By location, Perth County and Huron County have each reported 45 cases, while Stratford has seen 31, and St. Marys six. Four deaths have also been reported in Stratford, and one in St. Marys.
Within Perth County itself, North Perth has seen 16 cases and Perth East 15, while in Huron County, Central Huron has seen 14 cases, Bluewater 12, and South Huron 10.
At least 27 cases have been linked to people in their 20s, followed by people in their 50s with 23 and people in their 60s with 22. At least 56 per cent of cases involve women and girls.
At least 35,083 tests had been conducted by the health unit as of Sept. 13, the most recent figures available. That week saw 1,925 tests completed and a per cent positivity rate of 0.2 per cent.
Sarnia and Lambton
One person has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, officials with Lambton Public Health (LPH) reported late Thursday.
It brings the region’s total case count to 345, of which 318 have recovered. Twenty-five people have also died, most recently in early June.
It leaves at least two known active cases in the county.
Health officials reported no change late Wednesday, one recovery late Tuesday and one case each late Monday and Saturday.
The number of outbreaks and hospitalizations in the region remain unchanged at 10 and 58, respectively.
Of the outbreaks, eight have involved seniors’ homes, one has been at Bluewater Health hospital, and one has been at an unspecified workplace.
The last outbreak to be declared over was on Aug. 15, while the last COVID-19 patient to be hospitalized was in late May.
Close contact is tied to at least 135 cases, followed by outbreaks with 113 and travel with seven. Seventy-five cases have their exposure source listed as unknown. The exposure source for several cases was not known.
People 80 and up account for 76 cases, while people in their 50s make up 52 and people in their 20s 49. At least 196 cases, or 57 per cent, involve women and girls.
The health unit says at least 26,765 tests have been received as of late Thursday. At least 1.3 per cent of tests are coming back positive.
— With files from The Canadian Press
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