KFL&A COVID-19 cases remain high ahead of Queen’s University Homecoming, election
Global News
COVID-19 case numbers in the KFL&A region remain elevated as the city prepares for two weekends of raucous university parties and a municipal election.
Cases of COVID-19 in the Kingston area have been trending in the wrong direction in recent weeks.
With a number of large gathering events coming up in the week ahead, health experts remain concerned about the increased risk of transmission.
In late September and early October, COVID-19 numbers in the Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington Public Health region surpassed those seen during the January Omicron wave.
In the past week, there have been five recorded COVID-19-related deaths in the KFL&A region, which accounts for roughly five per cent of the 109 reported province-wide, though the Kingston region accounts for just one per cent of the population in the province.
Infectious disease specialist Dr. Gerald Evans says that part of that owes to the age demographics in Kingston.
“Part of that is what we call a demographic skew, so if you look at the population demographics of the local area, there’s a skew towards older people,” said Evans.
This, he said, causes Kingston to appear a bit more prominently in the larger data sets, as there are more people who are more vulnerable to the effects of COVID-19.
All the more concerning is the fact that there are multiple potential super-spreader events coming up in the community, all in the next week.