Over weekend, 65 new cases in Southwestern region

Southwestern Public Health on Monday, April 26, announced 65 new cases of COVID-19 had been confirmed in Elgin, St. Thomas and Woodstock over the weekend, compared to 12 on Friday.

Currently, the total number of ongoing cases being tracked in the region is at 160, up slightly from 159 Friday.

The health unit also reported that 27.2 percent of all ongoing cases involve persons 19 and younger.

The number of ongoing cases in St. Thomas and area dropped to 44 Monday from 52 Friday, while Aylmer and area increased to seven from three and Dutton Dunwich to six from four.

Bayham remained at five, Central Elgin and West Elgin at two each and Malahide at one.

In Oxford, Woodstock and area rose to 43 from 40, Ingersoll and area to 14 from eight, Blandford-Blenheim to four from three and South-West Oxford to two from one.

Tillsonburg and area dropped to 20 from 23, Norwich to five from eight, Zorra to four from five and East Zorra-Tavistock to one from two.

So far this year, Southwestern had found 352 cases involving “variants of concern” considered more contagious and/or creating more severe symptoms than the original strain. Of those, 302 have been resolved and 50 are ongoing. Most are believed to involve a variant first identified in the United Kingdom.

Currently, six residents of the area are hospitalized with COVID-19, one in an Intensive Care Unit.

The infection rate for the Southwestern area stands at 75.7 cases per 100,000 of population, up from 75.2 on Friday.

Across Ontario, 3,510 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed on Monday, down from 3,947 on Sunday and 4,094 on Saturday.