COVID-19 cases reach unprecedented level in Kingston, Frontenac, Lennnox and Addington

New cases of COVID-19 continue to rise in Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington, with the majority of them located in Kingston.

Joe Quattrocchi, the owner of Quattrocchi’s specialty foods, says delivery orders have doubled at his store.

“In the last two or three weeks people have been phoning in more or sending us their orders on the internet,” said Quattrocci.

Active cases have surpassed 200 and the infection rate is 71.3 per 100,000 for the last seven days.

Dr. Gerald Evans, an attending physician in infectious diseases and internal medicine at Kingston General Hospital and the Hotel Dieu Hospital, attributes the high numbers to low exposure to the virus during the first three waves and a small population of unvaccinated individuals.

“We have a lot of people who haven’t yet been vaccinated who remain susceptible to this infection because we have had such low rates of infection before,” said Dr. Evans.

“This is history repeating itself and it is one of those infamous drawbacks to doing really, really well in the beginning — sometimes it comes back to bite you later.”

Last week, KFL&A Public Health confirmed that half of the region’s cases are the result of community spread, with no known traceable source.

There may be some good news locally on the COVID-19 front in the coming weeks, according to Dr. Evans.

“The testing percentage, although still high amongst people getting tested here, there are other things that we look at that tell us those numbers may have peaked and may be dropping off,” said Dr. Evans.

“So that’s my hope for a holiday gift to the community is that by the time the late December days roll around, hopefully we’re in much smaller numbers than we are (are) now.”

According to KFL&A Public Health, out of the 203 active cases in the region, 13 are hospitalized, eight are in the intensive care unit and five are on ventilators.