The head of Cambrian College in Sudbury says there are no cases of COVID-19 on campus, and the school is doing all it can to ensure pandemic safety precautions are being taken.
In a recent online letter, President Bill Best says 23 people — students or faculty, support staff or administration — have self-reported that they have tested positive for COVID-19.
“In all cases, transmission occurred in the community, not on campus. We continue to support them in their recovery, while adhering to [health unit] guidelines and the need to uphold the confidentially of all involved,” he wrote.
“There is no evidence of transmission on campus, there is no outbreak at Cambrian, there are no further actions required.”
He says the college has cancelled three classes and conducted deep cleaning of affected areas.
“As the number of cases grow inside the Greater Sudbury community, we may have other individuals who will self-identify to us and let us know that they tested positive,” Best told CBC News.
“Because our individuals live in the greater Sudbury community, we’re part of that process to support public health and their contact tracing. Public health is telling us that they’ve done their investigation … and the information they provided us is there’s no evidence of transmission on campus.”
As of Tuesday evening, the Sudbury health unit was reporting there are 54 known cases in the region.
Best said the reality that Cambrian-associated cases make up about half that number is plausible.
“Cambrian intersects with all parts of Sudbury. It’s not unanticipated that, as a community spread occurs … we would have individuals included in those numbers,” he said.
“These individuals, live and work in the community and they happen to be Cambrian students or parts of our family. And as a result, we’re making sure that we support them.”
Best noted that about 35 per cent of its programs are done completely online. And for the remaining courses that “require some level of mandatory hands-on” training, students attend campus for that component “and then they leave.”
“So, on average, we would have about a 1,000, maybe 1,200 [people on campus] over the course of a day, but not all at the same time,” he said.
“Our population density is about down to 20 per cent. And any student or faculty member or staff that would be infected with COVID-19 would not be coming on campus after they’ve self-reported.”
International students on the way
The spike in self-reported cases comes as the college prepares to welcome international students again on campus.
Best says there is a quarantine plan for these students, which is overseen by the federal and provincial government.
“So every international student that comes through IRCC [Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada] and gets a study permit, whether it’s Cambrian or any other post-secondary education institution in Canada, has to actually go through an entire quarantine process and get tested, before they enter into the community,” he said.
“So they’re actually going to go through a more rigorous process than students or people traveling within Canada.”
Best says they can either quarantine in Toronto, where Cambrian has connections for students there, or they can quarantine at Laurentian University, which will “provide full quarantine services for the two week period and ensure that they get their testing.”
“We’re feeling that the things that we have in place, including the decrease in population, mandatory masks, etc., is that we’re able to prevent the transmission on campus,” Best said.
“We adopted mandatory masks inside the building, we have physical distancing and we have Plexiglas installed. We’ve reduced our population density dramatically, so there’s lots of space to allow for that physical distancing. We really need to make sure that diligence that we’re doing on campus really flows over into the community. And just because you’re no longer on campus doesn’t mean that you don’t adhere to those same things. And I think as a community, it’s really important.”
