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COVID-19 positivity rate still climbing

November 17, 2021 | 3

Southwestern Public Health on Wednesday, Nov. 17, revealed that the percentage of COVID-19 tests coming back as positive had climbed again.

It rose to 5.8 percent as of Nov. 7, up from 5.1 percent on Oct. 31. The positivity rate has been cited by the health unit as one factor in a decision announced Tuesday to invoke new pandemic restrictions in Elgin, St. Thomas and Oxford, but what form those changes will take has yet to be announced.

SWPH also announced 26 new cases of COVID-19 had been confirmed Wednesday, up from 24 the previous day.  The number of ongoing cases being tracked by the health unit increased to 167 from 161.

As of Wednesday, 14 Southwestern residents were hospitalized with COVID-19, seven of them in intensive care units.

Locally, Aylmer and area has the most ongoing cases in Elgin and St. Thomas with 35, St. Thomas and area is at 29 and Bayham at 17. Malahide and Bayham have two cases each and Central Elgin and Southwold one each.

The rate of ongoing cases in the Southwestern area stands at 79 per 100,000 of population, up from 76.1 on Tuesday.

Across Ontario, 512 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed Wednesday, up from 481 Tuesday.

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  • Drake Larsen

    The total number tested is WAY down, it’s less than half of daily testing at peak. Now only those acutely symptomatic or associated with acute cases are being tested. Therefore of course positivity rates are climbing! How can this be a determining factor of increased totalitarian restrictions?! Someday only those whacked with respiratory illness will aquiesce to the paranoid testing regime and then positivity rates will reach 100%. SMH. Fewer local people are ill with COVID today than since the declared pandemic started and still AE can’t help but beat the drum of FEAR.

  • nobody

    Funny that!!!
    An argument, attacking a statistic, devoid of statistics, Huh?
    No-one who has a rudimentary understanding of Mathematics would
    “Segway” into “Verbiage” as you do.
    With no weight to your argument you still persist in a broadside attach on
    Public Health Measures that will aid in containment.
    Has Your paltry Business Venture suffered so greatly that you now mean to direct
    your animus at Harbingers of Information?
    That level of self-entitlement is lacking in the Canadian populace.
    Are you an “American” ? Part of the Psychotic/Schizophrenic nation that is the USA?
    If so, your idiocy is not welcome.

    3/10.