Kingston region enters grey zone as province shuts down

Queen’s reports 31 active cases of COVID-19, six new off-campus

Image by: Maia McCann
The lockdown will take effect April 3.

The provincial government has pulled the emergency brakes on its reopening, moving the entire province into the grey lockdown zone—including the Kingston region. 

The lockdown will take effect on Saturday, April 3 at 12:01 a.m. in all 34 public health regions for a period of four weeks. The Kingston, Frontenac, and Lennox and Addington (KFL&A) region had been moved into the yellow zone on March 22. 

“Friends, right now, we are into a third wave of COVID-19. The variants of concern are spreading rapidly,” Premier Doug Ford said in a press conference Thursday afternoon. “This is a new pandemic. We’re now fighting a new enemy. The new variants are far more dangerous than before: they spread faster and they do more harm than the virus we were fighting last year.”

Queen’s is reporting 31 active cases of COVID-19 as of Thursday evening, including two in residence and 29 off-campus.

The University’s case tracker is showing six new cases during the week of March 29 to April 4; all six cases have been identified off-campus.

“Younger people are ending up in the hospital, and with these new variants the risk of ICU admission is two times higher,” Ford said. “The risk of death is one and a half times higher.” 

Students can access asymptomatic testing at the Student Wellness Services (SWS) testing centre at Mitchell Hall. Students can book appointments Monday to Friday, from 9 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Appointments can be booked by calling SWS at 613-533-2506; however, evening appointments—4 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.—can also be booked through the online portal.

A total of 206 cases have been identified at Queen’s since Aug. 31, including 25 in residence buildings and 181 off-campus. The Queen’s community has accounted for 22.1 per cent of all cases in the region since March 2020.

The outbreak in residence is considered ongoing by KFL&A Public Health, however there are zero active cases linked to it. All 16 cases affiliated with the outbreak have been marked resolved.

There are currently 62 active cases in the KFL&A region. Since the pandemic was declared last March, there have been 934 cases, including 88 confirmed variant of concern cases and one death. 

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