The number of COVID-19 cases in the Kingston area has doubled over the past weekend from 17 on Friday to 34. Two of those cases are health-care workers from Providence Care Hospital.

According to Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox and Addington Public Health, half of the new cases have been caused by community spread, while the other half consists of people who have returned home after travelling abroad.

“About 50 per cent continue to be returning travellers, which is what we expected,” Dr. Kieran Moore, Kingston’s medical officer of health, said. “But now we are seeing some (people who were in contact with infected individuals) from earlier on come down with the infection. We are following up with all of these cases and make sure their contacts are aggressively tested.”

Out of those 34, only one man is currently in hospital receiving supplemental oxygen. He was transported there from the primary assessment centre and is in stable condition. He is the second person to be admitted to the hospital because of the coronavirus — the first has already recovered and returned home.

The two Providence Care Hospital workers did not go in to work once they developed symptoms.

“They followed our protocols by self-monitoring and rapidly identifying themselves to the occupational health (department) for testing,” Dr. Gerald Evans, Providence Care’s medical director of infection prevention and control, said.

“We have all the necessary precautions in place, and I feel confident in our ability to respond appropriately to limit the spread of infection.”

The phrase “flatten the curve” has emerged as the motto for all of the efforts underway to try to slow the spread of the virus. What it actually refers to is trying to stop the number of infections from growing exponentially and overwhelming the health-care system as it has in countries such as Italy.

“It’s a highly infectious agent. It wants to go from one person to three, and from those three to nine, to 27 and onwards,” Moore explained.

Even though the number of cases has doubled in just a few days, Moore said COVID-19 infections in Kingston are not growing exponentially or out of control at the moment.

Most of the new community-spread cases from over the weekend were people who had been in contact with infected individuals and caught COVID-19 themselves. Public health has been aggressively testing such people, and that is why so many were discovered in such a short amount of time, not because the virus is freely moving through the community, Moore said.

“We are seeing small pockets where families are getting infected and friends of families are getting infected. Our staff is working seven days a week contacting these individuals, tracking them down, doing that public health detective work, to slow down the spread through our community,” he said.

“We knew that many of these individuals were at risk, and we were waiting during their 14 days to see if they would come down with symptoms, and some have. They have been isolating at home and, in my professional opinion, they haven’t been a threat to the community.

“We have only seen one or two cases out of those 34 that were unexpected.”

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Cases reported by the Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox and Addington Public Health

Reported on March 17:

A 28-year-old man who had travelled to the United Kingdom. He was to self-isolate at home. He was identified at the Hotel Dieu Hospital assessment centre before it moved to the Memorial Centre

A 44-year-old woman who had travelled to Spain. She was to self-isolate at home. She was identified at the Hotel Dieu Hospital assessment centre.

A 62-year-old woman who had travelled to Barbados. She was to self-isolate at home. She was identified at the Hotel Dieu Hospital assessment centre.

Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox and Addington Public Health then stopped releasing the exact ages of the patients and where they were tested for the virus, claiming the patients’ privacy would be at stake.

Reported on March 19:

A woman in her 70s who had travelled to Portugal. She was hospitalized due to the severity of her symptoms. She has since been released from hospital.

Reported on March 23:

A man in his 40s who had been in contact with someone who had travelled. He was to self-isolate.

A man in his 30s who had travelled to the United Kingdom. He was to self-isolate.

A man and woman, both in their 70s, who had travelled to Singapore. They were to self-isolate.

Reported on March 24:

A man in his 20s who had travelled to Mexico. He is to self-isolate.

A preteen boy who had contact with a traveller. He was to self-isolate.

A teenage girl who had contact with a traveller. She was to self-isolate.

Public health would not confirm if the preteen boy and the teen girl were in contact with the same traveller, claiming it could identify them.

Reported on March 25:

A woman in her 50s who is a health-care worker and contracted the virus in the community. She is self-isolating.

A woman in her 30s who is a health-care worker and contracted the virus in the community. She is self-isolating.

The third’s information is still “pending.”

Reported on March 26:

A woman in her 40s who is a health-care worker and contracted the virus in the community. She is self-isolating.

A woman in her 20s who recently travelled to Ireland. She is self-isolating.

Reported on March 27:

A man in his 60s who was in contact with a recent traveller. He is self-isolating.

Reported on March 30: