KFL&A Public Health provides Community COVID-19 Update
Kingston’s Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Kieran Moore, provided a COVID-19 community update for members of the press Thursday afternoon, to share the latest details of the region’s pandemic response.
Current caseload
There were no new cases to report on Thursday, Feb. 4, 2021, with one person recovered and a confirmed active cases count of 13. This is the fourth day of the past seven that Public Health reported no new cases.
Two people are hospitalized for treatment of COVID-19 in the region. One of them is in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), on a ventilator.
Stay-at-home order
According to Dr. Moore, the Ontario government is expected to make announcements about the lockdown and provincial reopening on Monday. Ontarians are currently under the restrictions of a Stay-at-home order.
Local vaccine rollout
Seventy per cent of long-term care residents in Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox & Addington, approximately 1200 people, have received their first dose of the COVID-19 so far.* Kingston Health Sciences Centre also inoculated some long-term care staff in the first days of receiving the vaccine, bringing the total to approximately 2000 doses given*.
COVID-19 variants
So far in the province there have been 106 positive cases for variants of concern, including the B.1.1.7 first identified in the U.K. One one of these cases has also been a variant first identified in South Africa.
According to KFL&A Public Health, the province has massively expanded testing for COVID-19 variants to 50,000 tests per day. The province plans to screen all COVID-19 tests in Ontario for variants during the month of February.
Kingston’s Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Kieran Moore, is encouraging the community to stay vigilant and adhere to public health measures in order to limit the risk of transmission, especially of new, more transmissible variants.
*UPDATE: On Friday, Feb. 5, 2021, KFL&A Public Health issued a correction regarding the number of inoculations. This article previously stated that 1,200 indviduals had been vaccinated, as per information provided by Public Health at the time of publication.