Southwestern confirms 56 new COVID-19 cases, and one death

Southwestern Public Health reported its 69th death linked to COVID-19 on Monday, March 29, involving an Oxford woman in her 70s.

The health unit recorded 56 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 over the weekend, bringing the total number of ongoing cases at the moment to 92, up from 76 on Friday.

St. Thomas and area increased to 24 ongoing cases Monday from 15 Friday, Central Elgin to 11 from nine, Dutton Dunwich to four from one, Malahide to three from one and Bayham to two from one, while one new case was reported in West Elgin.

Aylmer and area decreased to one case from two.

In Oxford, Woodstock dropped to 25 from 26, South-West Oxford to three from four, East Zorra-Tavistock to two from three and Norwich to one from two.

Two new cases were reported in Blandford-Blenheim, and Ingersoll and area stayed at seven cases and Tillsonburg and area at two.

Southwestern has in recent weeks confirmed 65 cases involving “variants of concern” of COVID-19. Those are considered especially dangerous because they are either more contagious or virulent than the original strain.

Five cases have been confirmed to be of the United Kingdom variant, and one either the Brazilian or South African variants. All six have been resolved. The rest are assumed to be of the United Kingdom variant.

The health unit says 14 variant cases out of 65 remained active, but the rest had been resolved.

The infection rate for the Southwestern region of Elgin, St. Thomas and Oxford stands at 43.5 cases per 100,000 of population, up from 35.9 on Friday.

Across Ontario, 2,094 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed on Monday, 2,448 on Sunday, and 2,453 on Saturday.