COVID-19 outbreak declared at Victoria Hospital

A COVID-19 outbreak has been reported at Victoria Hospital.

The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) said Tuesday the outbreak was declared in the ENT/Burns/Plastics unit.

While there's no word on how many cases are linked to this outbreak,according to the hospital, an outbreak is declared "as soon as there are two or more confirmed cases among patients orstaff that could havepossibly beenacquired on an inpatient unit."

The latest outbreak at Victoria Hospital comes asUniversity Hospital grapples with multipleoutbreaks and more deaths associated with them.

On Tuesday, the LHSCreported one newdeath in connection to an outbreak at the hospital, bringing the death toll associated with the outbreaks to 16.

The outbreaks at University Hospital are affecting various wards, including:

• Epilepsy Monitoring Unit -Declared: Dec.11
• General Surgery -Declared: Dec.9
• Cardiology and cardiology offices -Declared: Dec.5
• General Medicine -Declared: Nov.10
• Multi-Organ Transplant Unit -Declared: Nov.27
• Acute/Decant Medicine -Declared: Nov.24
• Sub-Acute Medicine -Declared: Nov.24
• Palliative Care/Sub-Acute Medicine -Declared: Nov.24

As of Tuesday, the LHSCsaid 77patients and 82staff had tested positive for COVID-19.

Meanwhile, in a memo obtained by CBC News Tuesday, Ontario Health is telling hospitals across the provinceto prepare for a spike in COVID-19 patients.

The memo calls on hospitals to be ready to activate emergency plans, which for hospitals in the grey lockdown and red control zone of the province's COVID-19 response framework means makingup to 15 per cent of their beds available for COVID-19 patients.