Vaccination begins in rural KFL&A as active COVID-19 case loads decrease

Jeff Green | Jan 27, 2021

UK variant has arrived, prompting new measures.

Residents at the Pine Meadow Nursing Home in Northbrook were offered the Pfizer-Biontech vaccine on Saturday (January 23) and 92.5% of the residents in the home took up the offer and received their first dose.

“It was a very exciting and emotional day,” said Margaret Palimaka,” administrator at Pine Meadow in an email to the News. “We are all so happy to be moving ahead with this. We had been a little concerned that we would have to wait until later in the process to get the vaccine because KFL&A has been doing so well throughout this past year and we are in a pretty remote location.”

The impact of a shortage of Pfizer vaccine in KFL&A was felt at Pine Meadow on Saturday, however. 

“There were only a couple of doses left on Saturday after the residents were vaccinated,” said Palimaka, “so those were given to staff. We have been told that staff and essential caregivers will be receiving their first dose at a later date once the Pfizer vaccine numbers increase again. We don’t know when that will be but we are looking forward to it.”

Some of the Pine Meadow staff have gone to Kingston Health Sciences Centre to get their first dose 

Vaccination roll-out has not hit rural retirement homes yet

The News has made Inquiries to retirement residences and even a seniors’ apartment complex in Frontenac County, and found most are still waiting to learn when their residents and staff will be offered the vaccine on-site.

According to the manager of one of the retirement residences in Frontenac County, KFLAPH has said they expect the vaccine will be offered to residents in long term care/retirement homes, by February 21. 

The manager said they were hoping to be informed of the date when the vaccine will be offered, a day or two, so they gather all their employees to get the shot at one time.

Also on Monday, the provincial government announced that residents in long term care throughout the province will now become the first priority for vaccination, with a target date of February 5 for the first dose.

It appears that senior’s living in senior’s housing complexes, are not included in the priority list the way those in retirement homes and long term care are.

Neil Orser, the administrator for the Loughborough Housing Corporation, which runs two seniors’ apartment buildings in Sydenham, said he has not been contacted at all by health officials about the vaccination program, or anything else, over the last 10 months since the COVID-19 response began.

“I’ve just followed the published guidelines, as have the residents in the two buildings,” he said.

UK variant

Kingston Frontenac Public Health (KFLAPH) put out a media release on Monday (January 25) announcing that there has been a lab confirmed case B.1.1.7 COIVD-19 case in KFL&A. B.1.1.7 is a new, more easily transmissible variant of COVID-19 that was first found in the United Kingdom. 

As a result, Dr. Kieran Moore, the Medical Officer of Health for the region, is “advising anyone who has travelled outside of the region (i.e., beyond Hastings, Prince Edward, Leeds, Grenville, or Lanark counties), has had visitors from outside the region, or has moved to the region in the last 14 days to consider voluntary, asymptomatic testing for COVID-19.”

“We know that one in five individuals with COVID-19 don’t have symptoms but carry and transmit COVID-19,” said Dr. Moore. “With this new variant detected in our area, it is crucial that we alter our COVID-19 control strategies and recommend asymptomatic testing to those who have travelled, or had visitors, from outside our region, to detect positive COVID-19 cases early and to isolate these cases, to prevent rapid spread of the virus and outbreaks in our community.”

KFLAPH is also recommending a more proactive approach, to comprehensive and timely case and contact management, to limit the spread of this variant with the following public health measures: Isolation period extended to 14 days for all confirmed or probable cases of COVID-19, and a lower threshold for considering contacts to have had high risk of exposure (e.g., not masked for any duration of time and less than 2 metres from each other).

“Please remain vigilant and continue to adhere to public health measures over the coming weeks and months as schools begin in-person learning. The continued efforts of individuals and families to stay home, stay local, and to not travel unless for essential purposes, will help keep the number of positive cases low in our area and help our community stay safe, until vaccines are available to all,” added Dr. Moore.

Caseload headed in the right direction

This sobering release from KFLAPH is coming about after the caseload in the region has settled down, after it had been on the rise in the early winter and through the holiday season.

As of Monday, January 25, there were 16 active cases in the region. This case rate compares favourably with the case rates in Ontario, Canada and the United States, in dramatic fashion.

The active case rate (per capita) is 22 times higher in Canada, 30 times higher in Ontario, and 95 times higher in the United States, than it is in KFL&A. The average region with a population of 200,000 anywhere in Canada, has 384 active cases, the average region in Ontario has 480, and in the United States the average is 1520 cases.

The overall case rate since the outbreak began shows a similar pattern. About 0.33% of KFL&A residents have had lab confirmed cases of the virus since March 15. 2020. In Ontario as a whole, the overall case rate is 6 times higher (1.8%). In Canada it is 7 times higher (2.05%) in the United States it is 22 times higher (7.6%), and in the United Kingdom it is 16 times higher (5.5%). 

There were no new cases of COVID-19 in KFL&A on Monday. The active case rate was 16, the case rate over the previous 7 days was 8 per 100,000 people, and the positive testing rate was 0.24%. The colour coded zones in Ontario have been superseded by the provincial lock-down and stay at home orders, but the KFL&A region will come out of those orders in the Green zone if the current trend persists.