Two of the deaths – an Elgin County man in his 90s and an Elgin County woman in her 80s – were related to ongoing long-term care or retirement home outbreaks.
Four more COVID-related deaths were confirmed in the Oxford and Elgin region Tuesday, highlighting what has been one of the deadliest months of the pandemic.
Two of the deaths – an Elgin County man in his 90s and an Elgin County woman in her 80s – were related to ongoing long-term care or retirement home outbreaks. The two remaining deaths – an Oxford County man in his 80s and an Oxford County woman in her 90s – were not related to any outbreaks.
Since the beginning of January, Southwestern public health officials have announced 23 COVID-related deaths.
The ongoing COVID-19 case count in the Oxford and Elgin counties region, however, declined again in Tuesday’s update, dropping from 803 to 743 cases.
While public health noted 65 new cases in its Tuesday update, these were more than offset by 120 recoveries and one case being removed from the local numbers.
The number of hospitalizations in the region also dropped sharply on Wednesday, falling from 51 to 29 patients, including eight still in intensive care.
There have now been 9,843 confirmed cumulative cases and 8,964 total recoveries in the Southwestern public health region since the pandemic began.
Despite the ongoing decline in active cases, 17 long-term care and retirement homes in the region remained in some degree of outbreak. There were also small active outbreaks at the Arches Transitional Bed Program in Woodstock and Tillsonburg District Memorial Hospital.
The region’s two largest urban communities – Woodstock and St. Thomas – continued to have the most active cases in the region, with 233 and 216 respectively.
This active case count, however, has become increasingly meaningless during the recent Omicron-driven surge, public health officials have said. With testing and contact-tracing capacity overwhelmed by the growing number of cases – and focused more on high-risk patients and settings – officials across the province have warned that counts are an underestimate of the actual number of active infections.
As of Jan. 24, 86.7 per cent of area residents 12 and older had received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine while 84.7 per cent had been administered two doses. For residents five and older, the local vaccination coverage rates dropped to 82.6 per cent with one dose and 77.6 per cent with two.