Saturday COVID update - Kingston could be the thin edge of the Omicron wedge in Ontario

Jeff Green | Dec 11, 2021

South Frontenac at highest COVID level since the start of the pandemic

When Dr. Kieran Moore and Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott held a briefing in Toronto on Friday (December 10) they said that the Omicron variant is expected to be the dominant variant of COVID-19 in Ontario within a few weeks, and that it will change the course of the pandemic.

At the same time, various reports from around the world, including at least one vaccine manufacturer, indicate that the two dose vaccination regime does not provide significant protection against symptomatic disease from Omicron, but that adding a booster dose does.

In response, Public Health Ontario and the Government of Ontario are speeding up the timelines for booster doses, making all Ontario residents over 18 eligible on January 4^th. A (Anyone over 50 can book a third dose starting this coming Monday)

The booster dose timelines may be too late for Ontario to avoid an Omicron wave this winter, and at least in Kingston, that wave may already be in full swing.

On Wednesday, as new COVID cases reached and surpassed 100 per day in Kingston Frontenac Lennox and Addington, Dr. Piotr Oglaza announced that the first confirmed case of the new variant had been identified in the region.

It was an individual, who had not travelled recently, and the case was confirmed on November 29, 2.5 weeks ago.

In response, Dr. Oglaza said that close contacts of confirmed Omicron cases must self isolate for ten days from the date of their last exposure to the infected individual, regardless of their vaccination status.

This is different than the previous advice, which said that fully vaccinated people needed to be tested and to monitor themselves for symptoms, but not necessarily self-isolate.

By Friday, December 10, the situation had escalated. KFL&A Public Health announced that samples from over 100 individuals wit COVID in the region are being tested to see if they are Omicron cases.

At the same time, the requirement for sef-isolation for 10 days for close contacts of confimed cases,, whether the close contact has been vaccinated or not, has been extended to all COVID cases in the region.

With 618 active cases in KFL&A as of Friday, a large number of people are now required to self-isolate.

Further, this advice is clearly based on the assumption that Omicron is on the ascendancy in the region, making the fully vaccinated population, which makes of 82.7% of KFL&A residents, less protected than had been the case just a week ago, when Omicron was just a future threat.

It is difficult to extrapolate from the relatively small data set on the KFLAPH dashboard, but the numbers do support the assumption that Omicron is here, and is causing a rise in cases among 18-29 year old residents.

Of the record 134 cases that were reported on Friday, 79 were among the 18-29 year old population, and 27 were among those 30-39. This population is the least vaccinated in the region among those eligible, but the rate is of fully vaccinated 18-40 year olds is still pretty high, 82.5%.

The differential between those who have tested positive among un-vaccinated and fully vaccinated was still significant as of Friday, 4.1 times, but that differential has been dropping. A week earlier it had been 6 times.

All of this information is consistent with the idea that Omicron has made inroads among Queen's students, who have a very high vaccination rate.

The COVID case rate for vaccinated people in KFLAPH is now in the red zone at 56 cases per 100,000 per week.

While Kingston is experiencing very high rates of COVID, South Frontenac has also seen a dramatic increase. A new outbreak at Storrington Public School joins an still ongoing one at St. Pagtrick Catholic School in Harrwsmith, and there were 17 new cases announced in South Frontenac on Thursday (December 10) and 13 on Friday (December 10).

There have been 41 confirmed cases in South Frontenac for the week ending on December 10. Based on an estimated population of 18,500, that makes the 7 day case rate 225 per 100,000, 4 times the Red zone minimum and one of the highest in the province. It is the highest rate for South Frontenac during the pandemic.

Only the rate in Kingston, 344 per 100,000 (based on an estimate population of 125,000) is higher among KFL&A municipalities.

There have been no cases among residents of Central and North Frontenac and Addington Highlands over the last 7 days.

As of Friday, there were 32 KFL&A residents in hospital with COVID, of whom 12 were receiving intensive care and 9 were on ventilators. With 2 deaths on Wednesday, the deat rate if now 8 over the last 3 weeks, 14 for the 19 month-olf pandemic as a whole.