COVID-19 update for Thursday, May 20

Southwestern Public Health was reporting 10 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Elgin, St. Thomas and Oxford on Thursday, May 20, down from 14 on Wednesday.

The number of ongoing cases being tracked by the health unit across the region stayed unchanged at 102.

In St. Thomas and area, ongoing cases decreased to 14 Thursday from 15 on Wednesday, and in West Elgin to one from two.

Central Elgin remained at six, Aylmer and area at four and Bayham at three.

In Oxford, Woodstock and area dropped to 36 from 37, Ingersoll and area to three from four and East Zorra-Tavistock to one from two.

Tillsonburg and area rose to 18 from 16 and Norwich to four from two. Zorra stayed at eight, Blandford-Blenheim at two and South-West Oxford at one.

So far this year, Southwestern had detected 707 cases involving “variants of concern” considered more contagious and/or creating more severe symptoms than the original strain of COVID-19.

Of those, 626 have been resolved and 81 are ongoing.

Currently, seven Southwestern area residents are hospitalized with COVID-19, five of them in intensive care units.

The infection rate for the region is unchanged at 48.2 cases per 100,000 of population.

Across Ontario, 2,400 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed on Thursday, up from 1,588 on Wednesday.