Four schools in the Halifax Regional Municipality are set to open Monday, Dec. 7 after closing because of positive COVID-19 cases.
The following schools will reopen:
- St. Margaret’s Bay Elementary (COVID-19 case identified Dec. 1)
- Bedford South (COVID-19 case identified Nov. 27)
- Auburn Drive (Closed since Nov. 23)
- Graham Creighton (Closed since Nov. 23)
In a COVID-19 briefing on Dec. 4, Dr. Robert Strang said Nova Scotia has had eight individual cases of COVID-19 in schools.
“We’ve done a lot of testing around all of those cases and we’ll continue to do testing of close contacts,” he said. “Other than one identified close contact, we’ve tested dozens and dozens of people who were close contact in a school — they’ve all been negative.”
He said all of those COVID-19 exposures were contracted from outside of the schools.
“I’m very comfortable that our schools remain safe places,” he said. “We’re not seeing schools as a place that is causing significant transmission of COVID-19. We have appropriate steps in place to maintain that safety and we will respond on a case-by-case basis as we’ve been doing around individual cases.”
Citadel High and Park West are also closed due to having positive COVID-19 cases. Those schools will remain closed until at least Tuesday and Thursday, respectively.
While Strang said he’s comfortable that Nova Scotia schools are safe, he also said his team and the province’s department of education will continue to evaluate the situation and consider implementing a blended learning model if necessary.
Still, he said he hasn’t seen anything suggesting they’ll need to adopt that model in the near future.
In terms of extending the winter vacation, Strang said it’s more of an operational issue rather than a health concern. He said his team will still contribute to the discussions but that schools have other factors to consider.
Once Nova Scotia gets a new case of COVID-19, the first priority is to see if that person was in a high-risk environment such as a long-term care facility or school. If the person was in a school, Public Health goes through a series of steps to evaluate contact tracing.
“We work rapidly,” he said. “And in every school case we’ve had, within 24 hours we have a clear understanding of who the close contacts are in the school, they are all put on isolation, arrangement for testing has been done and then we close the school for an appropriate amount of time.
“I’m very proud of the work that Public Health does in collaboration with our education partners on placing a priority in protecting the safety of students and teachers by that rapid investigation.”
Source: – HalifaxToday.ca
