Elgin woman in her 70s latest COVID-19-related death

Southwestern Public Health announced on Wednesday morning, Feb. 2, that an Elgin woman in her 70s had died with COVID-19, the 140th such fatality in Elgin, St. Thomas and Oxford since the pandemic began in March of 2020.

The health unit, now updating COVID-19 numbers on Monday, Wednesday and Friday instead of every weekday, reported that 99 new cases of the virus had been confirmed since Monday, or an average of just under 50 a day. That compares to an average of just under 63 a day over the weekend.

The number of ongoing confirmed cases being tracked by SWPH dropped to 570 Wednesday from 676 Monday.

Southwestern also announced that as of Wednesday, 25 area residents were hospitalized with COVID-19, with six of them in intensive care units, compared to 28 and eight respectively Monday.

Confirmed outbreaks were reported in 15 out of the area’s 34 long-term care and retirement care homes and at Tillsonburg District Memorial Hospital.

The “positivity rate” (percentage of tests for COVID-19 confirming the presence of the virus) was at 15.9 percent as of Jan. 23, down from 17.4 percent a week earlier.