St. Thomas cases on the rise

Southwestern Public Health was reporting 30 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, April 14, down from 32 on Tuesday.

The total number of ongoing cases being tracked by the health unit in Elgin, St. Thomas and Oxford increased to 182, up from 177.

St. Thomas and area jumped to 65 ongoing cases Wednesday from 55 Tuesday, while Aylmer and area decreased to 12 from 15 and Bayham to five from seven.

Dutton Dunwich stayed at seven, Central Elgin at four, Malahide at three and Southwold at one.

In Oxford, Woodstock and area decreased to 46 from 48, Ingersoll and area to six from nine and South-West Oxford to four from five.

Blandford-Blenheim rose to 12 from 11, Zorra to six from five, Tillsonburg and area to five from four and Norwich to three from one. East Zorra-Tavistock remained at two.

So far this year, Southwestern had recorded 203 cases involving variants of concern, considered more contagious and/or causing more severe symptoms than the original strain of COVID-19.

Of those, 106 have been resolved and 97 are ongoing. Most involve a variant first identified in the United Kingdom.

Seven persons in the Southwestern region are currently hospitalized due to COVID-19, one of them in an intensive care unit.

Across Ontario, 4,156 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed on Wednesday, up from 3,679 on Tuesday.