News Headlines

An Elgin man in his 70s has become the 53rd death linked to COVID-19 in Elgin, St. Thomas and Oxford, Southwestern Public Health reported on Sunday, Jan. 24. Confirmed COVID-19 cases, which had been in general decline in the area, made a resurgence, with 40 new cases on Sunday, up from 26 on Saturday. The…

Southwestern Public Health, in a new weekly news briefing on Thursday, Jan. 21, provided more detailed numbers on the massive outbreak of COVID-19 that has claimed the lives of 17 residents at Maple Manor Nursing Home in Tillsonburg. Medical Officer of Health Dr. Joyce Lock, in response to a question, said the home had so…

Ontario Minister of Education Stephen Lecce announced on Wednesday, January 20, that remote learning would continue for most school boards, including the Thames Valley District School Board. TVDSB, in its own statement, said “Students will not return to in-person learning on (Monday) January 25,” as originally planned. Students with complex special needs now attending in-school…

Southwestern Public Health reported a substantial decrease in both the number of new cases and the number of ongoing cases it is tracking in Elgin, St. Thomas and Oxford on Wednesday, Jan. 20. However, the health unit also recorded another death linked to COVID-19, an Oxford man, 83, residing at PeopleCare long-term care home in…

Southwestern Public Health recorded three more deaths linked to COVID-19 on Monday, Jan. 18. The dead included an Oxford woman, 94, a resident of Maple Manor Nursing Home in Tillsonburg, the site of a large-scale outbreak that has to date claimed 17 deaths. Two Oxford men, one 73 and one 75, also died. That brings…

Southwestern Public Health reported the deaths of two persons from Elgin County connected to COVID-19 on Thursday, Jan. 14. One, a resident at Carresant Care Bonnie Place in St. Thomas, was a woman, 82, and the other was a man, 79. The total number of deaths connected to COVID-19 in the Southwestern region of Elgin,…

Premier Doug Ford on Tuesday, Jan. 12, ordered all Ontarians to “stay at home” effective Thursday, Jan. 14. He said he has declared a new state of emergency for the province given the rapidly rising number of COVID-19 cases, the threat the health care system would be overwhelmed and an increasing number of deaths. Ontarians…

Southwestern Public Health announced three more deaths, all in Oxford, linked to COVID-19 on Tuesday morning, Jan. 12. They included two deaths at PeopleCare long-term care home in Tavistock, two women, one 96 and one 94, and one woman, 93 from the general population of Oxford. That brings the total number of deaths linked to…

Eighty residents out of 92 at Maple Manor Nursing Home in Tillsonburg have confirmed cases of COVID-19, and nine more have died, meaning only three are still untouched by the virus. Southwestern Public Health announced Sunday, Jan. 10, the number of cases involving residents of the home had rising to 80 from 69 the previous…

The Ontario Ministry of Education announced on Thursday, Jan. 7, that elementary schoolchildren in Southern Ontario won’t go back to attending classes in person until Monday, Jan. 25. The move was in response to the “alarming rate” at which new COVID-19 cases were being confirmed across Ontario, the government said in a statement. Instead, pupils…