KFL&A Public Health is reporting five new cases of the coronavirus in the Kingston region Friday, three of which are linked to Queen’s University, according to the post-secondary institution.
This is the region’s highest jump in cases since July, when an outbreak at a nail salon led to nearly 40 active cases.
As of Friday afternoon, there have been a total of 143 cases in the region since the beginning of the pandemic. Of those cases, 119 have resolved, leaving 24 active cases in the region.
The Queen’s University COVID-19 tracker originally reported one new case linked to the university on Friday. That number was updated later in the day to three cases linked to the school on Friday, all students living off-campus. This makes for eight cases related to Queen’s this week and 18 cases linked to the school since the beginning of the school year. The KFL&A region has seen 31 cases total since Aug. 31.
Public health says the five cases of COVID-19 were discovered in a man and a woman in their 40s, with mode of transmission still under investigation, and three women in their 20s, who caught the disease through close contact.
This jump in cases comes a day after KFL&A Public Health announced a link of five previous cases to a house party in the University District Sept. 18. The health unit has yet to confirm if any of Friday’s active cases are linked to that party.
The jump also comes the same day as Ontario’s largest spike in COVID-19 cases, with 732 recorded across the province Friday.