Dr. Kieran Moore, KFL&A Public Health’s chief medical officer, says he’s encouraged that the number of cases of the novel coronavirus in the area has dropped from 54 to 53 people this week.
This comes as COVID-19 testing has increased to 100 tests a day and the criteria have been expanded to include more people.
Moore says individuals can now be referred by their family physician.
“If they had a febrile respiratory illness and they were concerned about COVID-19 as a cause and they couldn’t find a contact history or travel history for that individual but suspected it, they were referring patients all week.”
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Testing in hospitals has increased as well, according to Moore.
“Those that are being diagnosed with pneumonia or those being diagnosed with their chronic obstructive lung diseases worse, their asthma is worse, their congestive heart failure is worse, we’re testing those individuals.”
Even with increased testing, Moore says there have been no new positive tests.
The head of KFL&A Public Health says there may be some individuals slipping through the cracks but believes it is a very limited number, adding that positive tests in the region can be traced to travel or known contact with an infected individual with very few exceptions.
“We’ve only had a couple where we haven’t understood how they got the illness.”
The assessment centres at Lennox and Addington County General Hospital and the Memorial Centre in Kingston are remaining open through the holiday weekend with reduced hours from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.
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