Ontario Construction News staff writer
A Kingston construction site has been temporarily shut down after reporting the city’s largest COVID-19 workplace outbreak, with 32 positive cases confirmed on Tuesday.
There were 110 construction workers at the site and all were tested when the outbreak was declared on May 2 – many are from multiple jurisdictions across Ontario were working at the site.
“There are workers from across Ontario that have come to this location. Over the last month there were potentially over 800 individuals,” Dr. Kieran Moore, Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox and Addington Public Health chief medical officer of health, said in a virtual news conference.
“Some of these are within our community and some are from outside of our community.”
The site is closed and workers are quarantining.
“There were over 800 tradespeople from multiple different companies that were on that site over the last several weeks and we’re actively investigating that those workers weren’t exposed,” Moore said, adding the main concern is possible community spread since the contractor had workers from Toronto, Leeds-Grenville and Ottawa.
The local health unit said the construction company has been following COVID-19 protocols, including mandatory masks and contract tracing and the Ministry of Labour is expected to investigate the site.
“We are now already seeing some spread to family members of these individuals in our community,” Moore said. “It’s propagating . . . and this is a warning to our community that this virus wants to spread quickly. It’s nasty. It’s aggressive.”
“Any time you have close personal contact, whether it’s at lunch, coffee break, a smoke break . . . this virus wants to spread.”
In an statement to CTV News Ottawa, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, Local 249, confirmed the All Seniors Care jobsite at Midland Avenue and Princess Street in Kingston is closed due to a COVID-19 outbreak.
“From our perspective, what happened here is a clear example of the risks that construction workers, like all other essential workers, are having to run during this pandemic and we urge the government to make sure that all essential jobsites are as safe as they can be and that vaccines be made available to the workers on these jobsites as quickly as possible,” CTV reported from the union statement.
The project – a long term care home – was deemed essential under the province and has been allowed to continue under the current Ontario stay-at-home order.
The health unit says the outbreak is likely the B.1.1.7 variant, first identified in the United Kingdom.