EDMONTON (660 NEWS) — Runny nose and sore throat are being removed from Alberta’s symptom checklist that required people under 18 to isolate.
These are being removed because there is little evidence to suggest these illnesses are indicators of COVID-19.
In the past week, more than 3,400 children and youth were tested for COVID and reported having a sore throat. Of those, just a little over 700 had a sore throat as their only symptoms, and less than one per cent were positive.
More than 3,300 children were tested with a runny nose with only 601 of them having a runny nose and nothing else. Less than 0.5 per cent of those tested positive for COVID-19.
Also, this is for those who have not had exposure to a positive case
— Jeff Slack (@Jeffslack660) October 29, 2020
“This shows us that these symptoms by themselves are very poor indicators of whether a child has the virus,” Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Chief Medical Officer of Health, said during Thursday’s COVID-19 update.
“Based on our data so far, the risk that a child with just one of these symptoms has COVID is even lower if that child is not known to be a close contact of someone with COVID-19.”
This change is only for those who have not had a known exposure.
If a child has had close contact with a positive case in the last 14 days, then a runny nose or sore throat is still enough to recommend testing and the child would need to remain at home in isolation.
The province is also moving to a more targeted symptom checklist that will consider the total number of symptoms a child may have.
730 total COVID cases tied to schools.
249 schools (10% of schools) have cases.
111 have outbreaks, 45 on watch list.
153 previous schools that had cases are back in class.
87 schools have had transmitted cases.
— Courtney Theriault (@cspotweet) October 29, 2020
Any child who has one of the core isolation symptoms, which are cough, fever, shortness of breath, or the new core isolations symptoms of loss of taste or smell, must still isolate for 10 days or have a negative test result and resolved symptoms before resuming any sort of activities.
“If a child has only one of any of the other symptoms on the list, they should stay home and monitor for 24 hours,” Hinshaw said.
“If their symptom is improving after 24 hours, testing is not necessary, and they can return to normal activities when they feel well enough. However, if the child has two or more symptoms on the list then testing is recommended and they should stay home until the symptoms go away or they test negative for COVID-19.”
The changes being made align with similar ones made in B.C., Ontario, and Quebec.
After those provinces updated their list, they did not see a corresponding increase in COVID-19 transmission in schools, Hinshaw said.
The changes are only for those under 18 and come into effect in the province starting on Monday.
This is not being expanded to adults because health officials are seeing different symptom trends. Additional work is being conducted to understand what kind of changes would be appropriate for adults.
