By Miranda Chant
May 6, 2020 1:03pm

A worker at a retirement home is one of seven more people in the London-area to be confirmed to have COVID-19.

The Middlesex London Health Unit confirmed the new cases on Wednesday, bringing the total number of cases in the region since the outbreak began to 431. One of the other new cases was reported to be a long-term care home resident. Local long-term care facilities have seen 86 cases in total – 53 residents and 33 staff members. Area retirement homes account for 47 of the cases – 33 residents and 14 employees.

No additional deaths related to COVID-19 were reported over the last 24 hours. To date, 42 people in London and Middlesex County have died from the virus.

Twenty-six people who have tested positive for COVID-19 are in the care of the London Health Sciences Centre, eight in the intensive care unit. A total of 39 LHSC employees have been diagnosed with the virus since the outbreak began.

According to the health unit, 274 of the people in the area to be confirmed to have COVID-19 have recovered.

It was another day with no new cases or deaths in Elgin and Oxford counties. Southwestern Public Health, that region’s health unit, reported the number of confirmed cases is holding at 60. There have only been four deaths from the virus between the two counties. Forty-three of the confirmed cases have since been resolved.

For the first time in three days, the province has recorded more than 400 new cases of COVID-19.

Public health officials said there were 412 new cases of the virus and 68 more deaths over the last 24 hours. Since the outbreak began there have been 18,722 cases confirmed in Ontario. A total of 1,429 COVID-19 related deaths have been reported across the province.

A total of 1,032 people are in hospital battling the virus, 219 of whom are in the intensive care unit.

There are 223 outbreaks in long-term care homes in Ontario. The nursing homes have seen a combined total of 653 deaths among residents. That is an increase of 44 deaths from the previous day.

The daily epidemiologic summary shows that 12,961 tests were completed on Tuesday, which is still below Premier Doug Ford’s target of 16,000 tests a day.

The number of Ontarians to recover from the virus has increased to 13,222.