News Headlines

The number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Elgin, St. Thomas and Oxford is continuing to rise, with 34 new cases in two days, for a total number of ongoing cases of 85. Almost half those cases involve persons under 30 years old. Three SWPH area residents are hospitalized with COVID-19, two of them in…

Southwestern Public Health was reporting 16 confirmed new cases of COVID-19 in Elgin, St. Thomas and Oxford on Thursday, Sept. 16, up from 10 on Wednesday. The number of ongoing cases being tracked by the health unit also rose, to 72 Wednesday from 60 Tuesday. Just under half of all ongoing cases involve those 29…

Yellow, six-pointed star stickers declaring “UN-VAXXED” offered for sale online by a local anti-restrictions activist closely mimic the yellow badges used to identify Jews in Nazi-controlled Europe during the Second Great War. A spokesperson for a national Jewish advocacy group said selling and promoting an item like this “is an exploitation of our community’s tragedy…

After an absence of a year, the Elgin Plowing Match returned on Saturday, Sept. 11, on the farm of Brian and Donna Lunn  south of Belmont. John Dekroon brought his Percheron team, Shadow, 6, and Sophie, 8, to compete in the horse-drawn division. He’s a farmer who pursues horse-drawn plowing as a hobby, explaining the…

A crash on Thursday, Sept. 9, at 2:51 p.m. involving a Central Elgin aerial fire truck and a car resulted in two persons being taken to hospital for treatment, one with serious injuries, Elgin Ontario Provincial Police report. The collision occurred at the intersection of Belmont Road and Ron McNeil Line, but the vehicles came…

Two drivers sustained seemingly minor injuries during a crash between a minivan and a transport truck loaded with steel coils on Highway 3 at Quaker Road on Thursday morning, Sept. 2. The crash occurred at 7:15 a.m. Both drivers were taken to St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital for treatment of their injuries. The highway has…

Southwestern Public Health reported Monday, Aug. 30, that Elgin, St. Thomas and Oxford had as a whole reached the vaccination targets set by the Ontario government for moving beyond Step 3 of the province’s Roadmap to Reopen. The targets required at least 80 percent of a health unit region’s eligible population (12 and older) to…

St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital, in a statement issued Thursday, Aug. 26, announced that given the rising number of COVID-19 cases requiring hospitalization both locally and across Ontario, current staff and physicians must be fully vaccinated against the virus or submit to daily testing before each work shift. Any new staff, physicians or contractors hired…

Southwestern Ontario Public Health announced Friday, Aug. 20, that as of Friday, Sept. 10, its mass-vaccination clinic at Memorial Arena in St. Thomas will close its doors. COVID-19 vaccinations will move to the health unit’s St. Thomas headquarters at 1230 Talbot Street, at the eastern edge of the city, and continue on a scaled-down basis.…

by Rob Perry of The Aylmer Express A group of Vienna and area residents have banded together to fight the possible sale of the Vienna Community Centre, which Bayham has declared surplus to its needs but has also decided to make $70,000 in upgrades to the facility. That includes a recent decision by Bayham council…