No cases in Elgin at the moment

Elgin County, for the first time in months, has no ongoing cases of COVID-19 being tracked by Southwestern Public Health as of Tuesday, June 29.

The health unit did report four new confirmed cases Tuesday, up slightly from an average of just under four a day during the weekend.

Currently, 15 ongoing cases of COVID-19 are being tracked in St. Thomas and Oxford, down from 24 Monday.

Ongoing cases in St. Thomas and area dropped to five Tuesday from eight Monday.

In Oxford, Woodstock and area decreased to five from eight and Tillsonburg and area to one from two.

East Zorra-Tavistock remained at two and Norwich at one, while one new case was discovered in Ingersoll and area.

Recently, cases of the Delta variant of COVID-19, first identified in India, have begun to appear locally, mainly in Oxford.

The first showed up last week, then increased to two. On Monday that shot up to 12, and on Tuesday rose to 13.

Delta is considered more contagious and to create more severe symptoms of COVID-19 than the original strain.

Last week, Southwestern Medical Officer of Health Dr. Joyce Lock warned that Delta was becoming the dominant strain in Ontario, and local residents should expect to see more cases in this area.

However, determining if Delta is responsible requires “whole genome sequencing,” essentially mapping out the entire gene of the virus, at a laboratory to confirm its presence. That takes a week, much longer than other variants.

As of Tuesday, three Southwestern residents are hospitalized with COVID-19, one in an intensive care unit.

The infection rate for the Southwestern region stands at 7.1 cases per 100,000 of population, down from 11.3 on Monday.

Across Ontario, 299 “new” cases of COVID-19 were reported on Tuesday, up from 210 on Monday, but Tuesday’s numbers included 90 cases from 2020 that hadn’t previously been counted, all in Toronto.