Southwestern records 80th COVID-19 death.

Southwestern Public Health on Tuesday morning, May 25, announced the death of an Oxford man in his 70s in a case connected to COVID-19.

That brings the total number of deaths to date in the pandemic in Elgin, St. Thomas and Oxford to 80.

Southwestern also reported 32 new cases of COVID-19 had been confirmed in Elgin, St. Thomas and Oxford over the Victoria Day long weekend, or an average of eight per day.

Last Friday, 15 new cases had been confirmed for just one day.

The number of ongoing cases being tracked by the health unit has fallen to double digits, standing at 88 Tuesday compared to 102 on Friday.

Hospitalizations due to COVID-19 are also down, to four Southwestern residents on Tuesday from nine on Friday. Two are in intensive care units versus five last Friday.

The number of ongoing cases in St. Thomas and area dropped to 11 Tuesday from 12 Friday and in Central Elgin to two from three.

Aylmer and area saw an increase to six from four and West Elgin to four from three, while Bayham stayed at two.

In Oxford, Woodstock and area decreased to 31 from 40, Tillsonburg and area to 10 from 17, Blandford-Blenheim to four from five and South-West Oxford to one from two.

Norwich rose to eight from six, while Zorra remained at eight and Ingersoll and area at one.

So far this year, Southwestern has detected 746 cases involving “variants of concern” considered more contagious and/or creating more severe symptoms than the original strain of COVID-19.

To date, 676 have been resolved and 70 are ongoing.

The infection rate for the Southwestern region stands at 41.6 per 100,000 of population, down from 49.2 on Friday.

Across Ontario, just 1,039 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed Tuesday, down from 1,446 Monday, 1,691 Sunday and 1,794 Saturday.