According to MLHU numbers, three of the four new cases involve staff at seniors homes.
Health officials say 462 of the region’s cases have been reported in London, where all four new cases were confirmed.
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Elsewhere, there have been 20 cases in Strathroy-Caradoc, seven in Middlesex Centre, four in North Middlesex, four in Thames Centre and one each in Lucan-Biddulph and Southwest Middlesex.
It’s unclear how many cases remain active in each location.
A chart from the MLHU showing the number of cases in London and Middlesex by reported date, Jan. 24 to May 22, 2020.
Middlesex-London Health Unit
Around 20 per cent of the region’s cases have involved hospitalizations, including 5.61 per cent who have been admitted to intensive care.
At least 17 COVID-19 patients were being treated in University and Victoria hospitals as of midnight Friday, according to London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC).
The number of active outbreaks remains unchanged at seven, all of which are at local long-term care and retirement homes.
The most recent outbreak was declared on Wednesday at Henley Place, a long-term care home in London. It’s the second outbreak to be declared at the home, after an outbreak that was active from March 28 until May 17.
A chart from MLHU showing the number of cases in London and Middlesex by association with a long-term care home, retirement home, or other, Jan. 24 to May 23, 2020.
MLHU
Outbreaks remain active at Country Terrace, Mount Hope Centre for Long-Term Care (St. Mary’s 5th Floor), Waverly Mansion, Sisters of St. Joseph, Meadow Park Care Centre and Kensington Village (LTCH).
As of Sunday, 99 cases have been reported in long-term care homes involving 58 residents and 41 staff members, while 65 cases have been reported in retirement homes involving 43 residents and 22 staff members.
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At least 41 staff members at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) have tested positive during the pandemic, a figure that remains unchanged from its previous update on Wednesday. It’s not clear how many cases have resolved and where the staff worked within LHSC.
Just under 11,400 additional tests have been conducted, and around 3,200 cases are under investigation.
Nationally, Canada is seeing 84,068 cases of the new coronavirus after 460 more were confirmed Sunday, the death count rose by 25 to 6,380, and the number of recoveries increased by 331 to 43,415.
Southwestern Public Health (SWPH) says there’s one active outbreak — at a long-term care facility in Ingersoll, where seven staff have been confirmed positive at Secord Trails Care Community as of Sunday morning. The outbreak was declared on May 18.
No residents have tested positive at the facility, according to SWPH.
The outbreak at Secord Trails is one of three to be declared in the region. The other two, at Beattie Manor and Caressant Care Bonnie Place, have since been resolved.
A chart from SWPH showing the per cent positivity rate of coronavirus tests in the region, April 3 to May 23, 2020.
SWPH
Ten cases remain active in SWPH jurisdiction, nine of them in Oxford County, including four in Ingersoll, two in Tillsonburg and Woodstock, and one in East Zorra-Tavistock.
One is located in Elgin County in Malahide, according to the health unit.
As of Sunday, 4,021 tests had been administered in Elgin and Oxford counties. Of those, 230 were awaiting results.
2:26 Coronavirus outbreak: Are you willing to pay a COVID-19 surcharge?
Coronavirus outbreak: Are you willing to pay a COVID-19 surcharge?
Huron and Perth
The number of deaths and recoveries remain the same compared to Saturday, but health officials say one more person has tested positive as of Sunday.
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The region has now seen 51 COVID-19 cases, five deaths and 44 recoveries.
Health officials say the new case involves a resident of North Perth, where there are now a total of four cases, three of which have resolved.
A chart from HPPH showing cumulative totals of COVID-19 cases, deaths, and recoveries from early March to May 24, 2020. The health unit notes the graph uses symptom onset date for cumulative confirmed cases. If the person does not have symptoms, the date of the swab test is used.
HPPH
Of the region’s five deaths, four have been linked to the resolved outbreak at Greenwood Court in Stratford. The home saw 10 staff infections and six resident infections.
Stratford itself has seen 25 of the region’s reported cases.
The health unit says at least 23 health-care workers in the area have tested positive for coronavirus.
As of Sunday, the health unit says 2,744 tests have been administered in Huron and Perth. Of those, 113 were awaiting test results.
One of the cases is linked to a resident at Vision Nursing Home, a long-term care facility in Sarnia, which has had an active outbreak of COVID-19 since April 23.
It’s the fifth day in a row that cases have been confirmed at the facility, which has now seen a total of 21 residents and 19 staff test positive.
Four residents of this facility have also died.
A chart from Lambton Public Health showing the number of confirmed cases in the county by reported date, March 24 to May 23, 2020.
Lambton Public Health
The facility is home to one of three active outbreaks.
The other two, at Marshall Gowland Manor and Village on the St. Clair, were declared active on May 15.
It’s unclear how many cases linked to the three outbreaks remain active.
Three other outbreaks at Landmark Village, Lambton Meadowview Villa and Sumac Lodge have since been declared over.
8:38 Coronavirus outbreak: As long as profit is being made in senior care, that care will be restricted: Unifor president
Coronavirus outbreak: As long as profit is being made in senior care, that care will be restricted: Unifor president
Health unit figures show long-term care and retirement home residents make up nearly a quarter of all cases, 22 per cent, while health-care workers make up 17 per cent.
Sarnia’s Bluewater Health was treating four confirmed COVID-19 patients as of Sunday morning — one less from Saturday, in addition to 14 patients who were suspected positive or awaiting tests — six more compared to the day before.
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— With files from Global News’ Ryan Rocca and Matthew Trevithick
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Whooping cough is at its highest level in a decade for this time of year, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.
There have been 18,506 cases of whooping cough reported so far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That’s the most at this point in the year since 2014, when cases topped 21,800.
The increase is not unexpected — whooping cough peaks every three to five years, health experts said. And the numbers indicate a return to levels before the coronavirus pandemic, when whooping cough and other contagious illnesses plummeted.
Still, the tally has some state health officials concerned, including those in Wisconsin, where there have been about 1,000 cases so far this year, compared to a total of 51 last year.
Nationwide, CDC has reported that kindergarten vaccination rates dipped last year and vaccine exemptions are at an all-time high. Thursday, it released state figures, showing that about 86% of kindergartners in Wisconsin got the whooping cough vaccine, compared to more than 92% nationally.
Whooping cough, also called pertussis, usually starts out like a cold, with a runny nose and other common symptoms, before turning into a prolonged cough. It is treated with antibiotics. Whooping cough used to be very common until a vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, which is now part of routine childhood vaccinations. It is in a shot along with tetanus and diphtheria vaccines. The combo shot is recommended for adults every 10 years.
“They used to call it the 100-day cough because it literally lasts for 100 days,” said Joyce Knestrick, a family nurse practitioner in Wheeling, West Virginia.
Whooping cough is usually seen mostly in infants and young children, who can develop serious complications. That’s why the vaccine is recommended during pregnancy, to pass along protection to the newborn, and for those who spend a lot of time with infants.
But public health workers say outbreaks this year are hitting older kids and teens. In Pennsylvania, most outbreaks have been in middle school, high school and college settings, an official said. Nearly all the cases in Douglas County, Nebraska, are schoolkids and teens, said Justin Frederick, deputy director of the health department.
That includes his own teenage daughter.
“It’s a horrible disease. She still wakes up — after being treated with her antibiotics — in a panic because she’s coughing so much she can’t breathe,” he said.
It’s important to get tested and treated with antibiotics early, said Dr. Kris Bryant, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Norton Children’s in Louisville, Kentucky. People exposed to the bacteria can also take antibiotics to stop the spread.
“Pertussis is worth preventing,” Bryant said. “The good news is that we have safe and effective vaccines.”
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AP data journalist Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
How a sperm and egg fuse together has long been a mystery.
New research by scientists in Austria provides tantalizing clues, showing fertilization works like a lock and key across the animal kingdom, from fish to people.
“We discovered this mechanism that’s really fundamental across all vertebrates as far as we can tell,” said co-author Andrea Pauli at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna.
The team found that three proteins on the sperm join to form a sort of key that unlocks the egg, allowing the sperm to attach. Their findings, drawn from studies in zebrafish, mice, and human cells, show how this process has persisted over millions of years of evolution. Results were published Thursday in the journal Cell.
Scientists had previously known about two proteins, one on the surface of the sperm and another on the egg’s membrane. Working with international collaborators, Pauli’s lab used Google DeepMind’s artificial intelligence tool AlphaFold — whose developers were awarded a Nobel Prize earlier this month — to help them identify a new protein that allows the first molecular connection between sperm and egg. They also demonstrated how it functions in living things.
It wasn’t previously known how the proteins “worked together as a team in order to allow sperm and egg to recognize each other,” Pauli said.
Scientists still don’t know how the sperm actually gets inside the egg after it attaches and hope to delve into that next.
Eventually, Pauli said, such work could help other scientists understand infertility better or develop new birth control methods.
The work provides targets for the development of male contraceptives in particular, said David Greenstein, a genetics and cell biology expert at the University of Minnesota who was not involved in the study.
The latest study “also underscores the importance of this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry,” he said in an email.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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