So far, 26 variant cases in Southwestern region

Southwestern Public Health has so far identified 26 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Elgin, St. Thomas and Oxford involving a variant of the virus.

Dr. Joyce Lock told a news briefing Wednesday, March 17, that all positive samples for COVID-19 were now receiving an additional laboratory test to identify the presence of one of two distinct genes associated with the three serious “variants of concern” known so far.

That allowed public health officials to determine if a case involves a variant, but not which variant specifically. That took extensive additional analysis which could require up to two weeks, she said.

On Thursday, March 18, the health unit started adding information on known variant cases in the Southwestern region to its online dashboard.

So far, 26 cases were known to have involved variants. Two had been identified as being of the B117 or United Kingdom strain.

Of the 24 additional cases, 15 were still ongoing and nine had been resolved, though the variant involved in the latter cases was not yet identified.

On Thursday, Southwestern also announced, as it does routinely, that five new cases of COVID-19 had been confirmed in its region, up from four on Wednesday.

The total number of ongoing cases was listed as 72, down from 73 the previous day.

Aylmer and area dropped slightly to 14 ongoing cases from 15, while Central Elgin stayed at seven and St. Thomas and area at five.

In Oxford, Woodstock and area rose to 35 from 33. East Zorra-Tavistock, Norwich and Tillsonburg and area stayed at three cases each, and Blandford-Blenheim and Ingersoll and area at one apiece.

The infection rate for the Southwestern region stands at 34 cases per 100,000 of population, down from 34.5 on Wednesday.

Across Ontario, 1,553 new cases were confirmed Thursday, up from 1,508 the previous day.