When COVID comes home from school

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This article was published 27/04/2021 (1633 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After her nine-year-old son contracted COVID-19 at school, Sarah Carroll saw the ripple effects first-hand.

Her family went into isolation as soon as they found out he’d been exposed to the virus, even though it took a week for him to start showing symptoms. She and her husband have lost income to stay home and care for their children while they wait to find out if they’ve been infected, too. She’s immuno-compromised, and after being so careful in the past year, the virus was able to enter their home.

She knows more than 20 other families are enduring the same reality.

It took less than two weeks for 22 people to become infected in the outbreak at Ecole Marie-Anne Gaboury, and the number of close contacts, people who haven’t been confirmed positive but were potentially exposed, has ballooned.

There are approximately seven close contacts for each school-related case in Manitoba, the most recent provincial data show. Over the past two weeks, 2,865 Manitobans have been identified as close contacts in 364 confirmed cases of COVID-19 within schools, a provincial spokesperson stated Tuesday. The numbers include other household members and people who were exposed to a school-related case outside of school.

All close contacts are required to self-isolate while they monitor for symptoms or await test results, so the effect of an outbreak can be far-reaching. At least 50 public-health nurses are working in each health region, seven days a week, to trace the most complex cases, the province said.

“This whole experience has made me realize it’s so much bigger than the virus itself. It’s the trickle effect that the virus has. It’s the isolating. It’s the loss of income. It’s all those things that come with it,” says Carroll.

Tired of hearing repeated public-health messaging that the virus is not being significantly transmitted in schools, the St. Vital resident took to social media this week to call for more support for teachers. She wants to see the province take urgent action to temporarily switch all schools to remote learning, as Ecole Marie-Anne Gaboury has done. But Carroll said her children haven’t been able to start remote lessons yet because teachers are ill or need time to prepare.

“To protect our teachers, I think it’s important that we move into remote learning at this time, because if we find ourselves in a defensive position where they can’t offer instruction because they’re sick or are taking care of people who are sick, we’re not going to have any instruction — remote or in person,” Carroll says.

Ecole Marie-Anne Gaboury has been a leader in COVID-19 safety, she says. It adopted mask- and physical-distancing requirements early, even for the youngest students.

“If this could happen at our school given those strict circumstances, that should be a warning sign to the government and to public health to say ‘hey, we are starting to see these early signs of transmission, what are we going to do?’”

Several Manitoba schools switched to remote learning this month in response to increasing case counts and rising numbers of students and staff who were sick or forced to quarantine.

This week, the provincial education department issued instructions for school divisions that are considering moving to remote learning. Superintendents are required to consult with public health and send a letter to the school community before making the switch. They’re also being asked to notify the department and make arrangements to accommodate the children of critical-services workers who are exempt from self-isolation rules.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay