COVID-19 outbreaks at CFB Kingston
The Canadian Armed Forces has confirmed multiple COVID-19 outbreaks at its base in Kingston. The outbreaks involve both the Royal Military College as well as at least one Division at CFB Kingston.
“The Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces take the health and well-being of their members very seriously. Currently, CFB Kingston can confirm that there are 2 units who are experiencing a higher than normal amount of cases on the base,” said Captain Soomin Kim, Public Affairs Officer with Canadian Forces Base Kingston. “CFB Kingston is working closely with the 33 Canadian Forces Health Services Centre to tailor its risk mitigation measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Preserving the Force Protection of our Defence Team members is paramount and all measures are being taken to mitigate the risk within the base.”
According to Captain Kim, those measures include restricting all social or work gathering on the base, restricting all indoor group physical training activities, providing a hotel-like accommodation to affected members as an isolation facility, and adhering to all Provincial Public Health Measures.
CFB Kingston did not disclose how many individuals were included in the outbreaks. “As per our national direction, we do not provide COVID-19 numbers at the local level broken down by base/units,” said Captain Kim.
Cases of COVID-19 amongst CAF members are reported to the provincial public health authority and automatically included in provincial case counts, not the local health unit’s, so these COVID-19 cases would be in addition to the 618 active cases in KFL&A as of Friday. According to the provincial public health authority’s dashboard, which as of the date of this publication has not been updated since Dec. 6, 2021 and so would not include these latest outbreaks, there are 13 currently active cases of COVID-19 within the Canadian Armed Forces population, with 2162 cases resolved since the beginning of the pandemic. Of those 2175 total cases, 248 are counted as breakthrough cases, meaning cases in fully vaccinated individuals.
“We would like to highlight that the vaccination rate against COVID-19 is very high among Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members,” said Captain Kim. “As of December 8, 2021, more than 96% of eligible CAF members have received their first dose, and 94% are fully vaccinated. With that being said, CFB Kingston is still operationally prepared and ready to respond wherever and whenever the government needs us to help protect Canadians.”