Active cases drop below 200 as MLHU reports 18 new daily COVID-19 cases

London, Ont. -

The Middlesex-London Health Unit (MLHU) is reporting 18 new cases of COVID-19 Thursday as the number of active cases in the community dropped below 200.

The new cases brings the local total since the start of the pandemic to 12,300 with 11,886 recoveries and 220 deaths.

The 40 recoveries recorded Thursday brought the number of active cases to 194.

There are 3,094 cases with a confirmed variant and another 372 with a mutation-positive sample.

The region has seen daily cases below 50 for 12 straight days.

London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) is currently caring for 31 inpatients with COVID-19, 11 of which are in the Intensive Care Unit.

Of the total number of inpatients, fewer than five patients in acute care and fewer than five in the ICU were transfers from another region.

There is one ongoing outbreak at long-term care or retirement facilities and there is one ongoing outbreak in a childcare setting (Simply Kids).

An outbreak at Kensington village was declared over Monday.

As of June 1, more than 282,000 vaccine doses have been administered in the region.

There were no new deaths reported in other local regions Wednesday.

Here is how the daily case numbers break down for other regional health units:

• Elgin-Oxford – four new, 43 active, 3,802 total, 3,677 resolved, 82 deaths, 799 variants
• Grey-Bruce –none new, three active, 1,345 total, 1,333 resolved, seven deaths, 384 variants
• Haldimand-Norfolk – three new, 35 active, 2,652 total, 2,565 resolved, 46 deaths
• Huron-Perth –four new, 44 active, 1,828 total, 1,727 resolved, 57 deaths, 278 variants
• Sarnia-Lambton – four new, 31 active, 3,503 total, 3,411 resolved, 61 deaths, 565 variants

Ontario reported 870 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Thursday, which comes after officials reported 916 new infections on Monday, 699 new infections on Tuesday and 733 new infections on Wednesday.

The ministry of health says the positivity rate is now at 2.8 per cent as of Thursday.