Ottawa students who have been identified as being in close contact with someone who has COVID-19 associated with a variant of concern will now be required to stay home longer if they choose not to get tested for the virus, Ottawa Public Health said.
Jonathan-Pitre Catholic Elementary School in Riverside South has been closed since March 11 because of an outbreak of COVID-19. Pop-up testing is scheduled to take place at the school on Thursday.Photo by Errol McGihon /Postmedia
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Ottawa Public Health has strengthened rules protecting children in elementary and secondary schools from COVID-19 as more contagious variants of the virus spread across Ontario.
The change arrives as Jonathan Pitre elementary remains temporarily closed after variants were suspected among the 13 students and staff who have tested positive at the school in Riverside South.
Ottawa students who have been identified as being in close contact with someone who has COVID-19 associated with a variant of concern will now be required to stay home longer if they choose not to get tested for the virus, Ottawa Public Health said.
OPH advises close contacts who have been sent home to self-isolate to get tests, but it’s not mandatory. Close contacts must stay home for 14 days from the time they were exposed, regardless of whether they get tests.
Students cannot be required to show negative COVID-19 tests before being allowed to return to school, according to provincial guidance on control of COVID-19 in schools.
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The change means that close contacts associated with the virus variants will have to stay home for 24 days, instead of the usual 14, if they don’t get tested.
“If the children do not seek testing, they are added to a school Do Not Attend list for an additional 10 days after completing their 14-day incubation period,” OPH said in a statement.
The virus variants spread more easily and quickly.
The virus suspected among cases at Jonathan Pitre school contains markers associated with the variants circulating in Ontario that were originally found in Britain, South Africa and Brazil.
Genomic sequencing that takes two weeks is under way to confirm the variant and type. The variant that dominates in Britain, B.1.1.7, is the main one circulating in Ontario.
OPH said the new rules were warranted by the emerging variants.
“Whereas previously OPH was seeing individuals associated to schools who tested positive for (variants of concern) who acquired the virus outside of school, we are now aware of situations in which (variants of concern) transmission is believed to have occurred within the school setting, leading to a modified and a strengthened approach, including school closures.”
The situation at schools reflects the rising rates of COVID-19 in Ottawa, which is headed back into the red zone of the province’s pandemic control measures.
Students at Jonathan Pitre have shifted to online learning. A pop-up testing clinic is scheduled to be held at the school Thursday.
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The school will remain closed until at least March 24, said a letter to parents from OPH.
The closure may last longer depending on results of the ongoing investigation, the letter added.
While the variants of concern are more contagious, officials say the same public health measures protect against all COVID-19, such as wearing a mask, hand-washing, maintaining distance and avoiding crowded or poorly ventilated spaces.
A case study by Toronto Public Health suggests pandemic protections now in place at schools can protect against the variants, Medical Officer of Health Eileen de Villa said.
She cited a study of two siblings in different classes who both developed COVID-10 linked to a variant of concern. Both students attended school while they were contagious, but before they had symptoms, de Villa told the Toronto Catholic District School Board in a presentation last week.
All 44 students and five staff who had been in classrooms with the two siblings were tested and were negative, she said.
The number of cases of COVID-19 connected to schools across Ontario is rising.
Students in Thunder Bay and the Sudbury area have temporarily shifted to remote learning from home because of high community rates of COVID-19.
In Ottawa, the number of active cases in schools has increased steadily since students returned to in-person learning on Feb. 1, but remains below the peak levels seen in mid-October.
There were 124 active cases of COVID-19 at the four Ottawa school boards as of Wednesday, which was double the number from March 1. (The results for the Ottawa Catholic School Board are based on Tuesday data because the board website had not been updated.)
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School closures in the Ottawa area
Jonathan Pitre Elementary, Ottawa: The school was closed March 11 after public health officials said they suspected some of the cases associated with the school were caused by variants of concern. The website of the Conseil des écoles catholiques du Centre-Est listed 11 active cases of COVID-19 and two resolved cases as of Wednesday. The school will remain closed until March 24 inclusive, and that may be extended.
Beckwith Public School, Leeds, Grenville & Lanark health unit: The school in the Upper Canada District School Board has had six cases of COVID-19, according to a news release Wednesday night. The school closed March 15. Due to “the evolving situation within the school and community, the local public health unit has decided that closing the school is a necessary precautionary measure to prevent further spread of COVID-19,” according to a letter to parents from the principal. Students have switched to remote learning and the situation will be reassessed on March 22.
Carleton Place High School: An outbreak of COVID-19 was declared at the school on March 8, but the closure was ordered by the principal, not by public health. Multiple cases of COVID-19 and people being asked to self-isolate caused a “significant staffing shortage, which has made it a challenge each day to keep our classes running and our students supervised,” the principal wrote in a March 11 letter that announced the school would close starting March 12. In addition, some students were staying away from school by choice “out of an abundance of caution,” the letter said. The situation will be reviewed on March 22 to determine when students can go back in person.
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HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
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