Mobile clinics reap rewards as vax rate ticks up in KFL&A

Jeff Green | Aug 18, 2021

After the target of 85% of eligible residents of Kingston Frontenac Lennox and Addington (KFL&A) was slipping away for several weeks, the efforts of Kingston Frontenac Public Health and partners Frontenac Paramedics and primary care physicians in Kingston have started to pay off.

As of Monday, the number of first doses administered had rebounded to 834 over the last seven days, a modest increase of just over 100 from a week earlier. But the increase, if it holds, means that the 85% threshold can be met in mid September.

With continuing second dose rates of over 2750 per week, an 80% second dose rate may be reached by Labour Day

And an added push to reach school aged children (between 12 and 17) and education workers, with help from local school boards, could help those numbers bump up further.

KFL&A is trending higher than the province as a whole in first and second dose rates. (82.9% of eligible KFL&A residents have had one dose (the provincial rate is 81.5%) and 75.4% of KFL&A residents have had both doses (the provincial rate is 73.5%)

For the High School aged target group, teenagers between 12 and 17 years old, the region is well ahead of the province as a whole, with a first dose rate of 77% when the provincial rate is 69%. Similarly, among 12-17 year olds, the second dose rate is 64.3% for the 12-17 cohort in KFL&A and the provincial second dose rate is 56.4%.

Efforts to reach the 85% threshold continue to focus on the so-called millennial cohorts, the 25-40 year old population, whose first dose rates are the lowest of any age group.

The region continues to have a low case rate, even as a 4th wave of infection is picking up steam elsewhere in the province. As of Monday, there were 7 active cases in KFL&A, a weekly case rate of only 2.8 per 100,000 people, and there are no COVID patients in hospital, throughout the region, at this time.

As the school year approaches, it appears that the student experience will be inching towards what life was like before the pandemic changes took effect in March of 2020, with the exception of mask mandates and the quad-mester system in secondary schools.

The Limestone District School Board (LDSB) has released its protocols for the resumption of school in September. A mask mandate in-doors will be in place, and students will remain in cohorts.

“Music, arts, physical education, field trips, assemblies, school nutrition programs and cafeteria use may resume, with some modifications and in consultation with local public health,” said an LDSB release on Monday (August 16), and extra-curricular and inter school sports activities will resume as well.