COVID-19 Activity in KFL&A Update for December 7, 2020

EDIT: The 15 additional cases were connected to one of the clinical outbreaks and NOT the outbreak at the place of worship. TRANSCRIPT Can you give us an update on today’s cases? Yes, so in KFL&A as of December 7, 2020, for COVID-19 activity, I wish I had better news. Our activity level if you remember the number of cases over time, in March we had a rise, in June, and then return of school. We’re now seeing the epidemic curve start to rise significantly. We definitely see widespread community activity of COVID-19, and I’ll explain how that has risen. But the risk in our community has gone up significantly of COVID-19. Everyone should be aware of the increased risk and take precautions. So we have 55 cases that we are actively monitoring, they’ve tested positive for COVID-19. Luckily they are all in their homes not in the hospital. 400 contacts of these individuals. That’s our largest number to date. And we’ve had numerous outbreaks in the community. We had outbreak at one location, a place of worship. Where we had nine direct cases associated with that facility and then 15 additional cases, so it’s spread in their families or friends. We have seven cases associated with a clinical setting in the community, so a health care provider. Three cases associated with personal support workers in the community. Off campus activity amongst students university and college, we have around five cases. One positive worker in a retirement home and we are actively investigating to ensure that that will not spread. And we’ve had three people over 80 that have had the virus and have been unwell and we are monitoring them very closely. Two of them may be recovering this week. And we’ve had an outbreak associated with the gym. So this all started, this cascade of cases, started with travel and now we’re seeing the seventh generation. So spread, spread, spread, spread in the community, secondary to travel related cases. And we’re clearly seeing as soon as you’re in closed spaces, and/or in crowds, or close faces that this virus wants to spread quickly and rapidly. And it’s doing so. Very concerned about elderly or those with comorbid illnesses, so any chronic disease in our community, we really don’t want you going out. Given that the risk has gone up so high in our community. It’s best that you stay home. You get someone else to bring you your food, or your medication, and going to places of worship if it can be done virtually, that is absolutely the best. Everyone in our community now should be screening for symptoms on a daily basis for COVID-19 and there’s the website for that. Don’t go to work if you’ve had symptoms. We’ve had transmission because people have gone to work, with even minor symptoms. If you get symptoms of COVID-19, a fever, a cough, increasing shortness of breath, loss of taste or smell, as the major symptoms, please get tested, don’t go to work, because we don’t want to see at risk individuals in our community get infected. We know we’ve had some healthcare workers at our large hospitals test positive as well and that is a major risk to those settings. So, I’m sorry the risk has gone up, we know the best practices that can decrease this risk and set us in the right path going into the holidays. Please we’ve done really well on prevention, let’s embrace prevention once more and protect those that are the most vulnerable in our community and try to get this case count down.