Coronavirus: 12 new cases of COVID-19 in Kingston, 53 active

KFL&A Public Health is reporting 12 new cases of COVID-19 in the Kingston region Tuesday, with 53 active cases.

As of Tuesday, one person is hospitalized, but not in an intensive care unit.

There are currently three institutional outbreaks in the region, one continuing one at Joyceville Institution, one at Bayshore Transitional Unit retirement home and one the health unit simply lists as “other services” under its COVID-19 dashboard.

The dashboard lists five “other outbreaks” but does not identify where they are.

On Monday, Dr. Kieran Moore, medical officer of health for the region, said the next several weeks was likely to bring more cases to the region, as KFL&A starts to see the effects of gatherings over the holidays.

The full effect of those gatherings should be seen by Jan. 14, Moore said.

In a community update released Tuesday, Moore said the majority of the day’s cases were high-risk contacts of known cases. These new cases came from a pool of 153 close contacts the health unit was already monitoring, which, Moore said, is good news.

“The situation seems controlled as of now,” he said.

Since the pandemic began, the region has seen 593 cases of the virus, 540 of which have resolved. There have been no deaths in the region to date.