The superintendent of the Kamloops-Thompson School District says there have been 42 COVID-19 exposures in 28 school days after the winter break compared to just five exposures in 69 school days before the winter break.

Terry Sullivan says it is why he’s concerned about the prospect of cases rising after the Family Day long weekend and March break next month.

“We were doing quite well up to Christmas I think, we had five cases and then after Christmas it escalated significantly,” Terry Sullivan told NL News.  “I don’t have the expertise that those in health would have so I don’t know how much of this rise in cases that we are seeing in schools is related to schools not being in session, but I think there has to be some connection to the fact that when schools are closed, we see these escalation in numbers.”

Like health officials across the province, Sullivan is again asking people to follow the guidelines that are in place to prevent more exposures in schools in the weeks and months ahead.

Earlier this week, Premier John Horgan said there were no plans to delay spring break at schools across British Columbia as he says the government is trying to keep things as normal as possible for school aged children.

So far this school year, Sullivan says there have been COVID-19 exposures at 11 out of 34 elementary schools and eight of 12 secondary schools in the Kamloops-Thompson School District. It has led to 763 of the 14,014 students (5.4 per cent) and 47 of the 2,097 staff (2.2 per cent) being told to self isolate. Those student numbers do not include the approximately 1,200 students who are part of the district’s distance education program this school year.

There are now six Kamloops schools with an active COVID-19 exposure – five within the Kamloops-Thompson School District – Sa-Hali Secondary, Valleyview Secondary, David Thompson Elementary, Juniper Ridge Elementary, and Lloyd George Elementary as well as the private St. Ann’s Academy.

Both Sullivan and Interior Health Medical Health Officer for Kamloops, Dr. Carol Fenton, who were part of a Thursday night town hall, noted that COVID-19 exposures in schools reflect the situation in the broader community.

According to the latest update from the BC Centre for Disease Control, the Kamloops local health area saw a record 161 cases between Jan. 31 and Feb. 6, beating the old record 124 cases during the week of Jan. 17 and Jan. 23.

Sa-Hali Secondary Update

Sullivan says there was one more case detected at Sa-Hali Secondary this week taking the total to 17 cases. A letter was not sent to parents because health officials determined that no one was exposed to this person.

At the school, attendance was about 50 per cent of normal this past week, up from about 20 per cent the week before, though Sullivan says a number of students are still staying away at this time.

“We’re certainly not there at full attendance yet but I’m hoping that as this evolves and the number of cases drop to zero, I would hope that students would be coming back,” he said.

“Parents are naturally concerned when they see cases in a school and they will withdraw their students until they can be sure that the situation has been stabilized. And that’s what we saw at Sa-Hali and that’s what we see at all the other schools where we’ve had cases.”

During the town hall, Fenton noted that the steps taken to isolate a large portion of the Sa-Hali school community seems to have helped reduce the number of cases being reported.

“We still have the Family Day weekend ahead of us, so I’ll be interested to see what happens next week and the following week as a result of Family Day weekend and then as we go into March of course with March break,” added Sullivan.