A trio of Burnaby schools – two public and one private – have been hit by recent COVID-19 exposures.
Two of the schools saw cases in teenage students (Byrne Creek Community School and St. Thomas More Collegiate), while one elementary school (Kitchener) had someone infected with COVID-19 attending every day last week.
- Kitchener - Parents at Kitchener Elementary School got a notification saying the infected individual had been at the school from Oct. 26 to 30. Fraser Health directed parents to keep sending their kids to the school and to continue monitoring them for COVID symptoms while health authority contact tracers work to identify any staff or students who need to self-isolate or self-monitor for symptoms. Only those directly exposed to COVID-19 at the school will be contacted by public health, according to the notice. Along with the Fraser Health letter, Kitchener parents got a notice from principal Dino Klarich saying, for privacy reasons, the school couldn’t provide any more information about the infected individual except to say they were self-isolating at home with support from Fraser Health.
- St. Thomas More Collegiate - A notice was posted Nov. 4 on the website of the private St. Thomas More Collegiate school in Burnaby saying a student had been confirmed by Fraser Health as having COVID-19. “At this time, the expected return date for those self-monitoring will be the start of the next ministered (week of Nov. 17),” read the website posting. As per public health policy, the Fraser Health Authority will contact others who may have been exposed and will advise us of any required actions. We are following the protocols laid out by public health officials and will advise you of any updates. School operations continue with the same focus on safety.”
- Byrne Creek - Byrne Creek Community School parents have received notices about an exposure at the school on Oct. 19 and then another letter about an exposure at the school on Oct. 26.
At a teleconference Wednesday, however, Fraser Health chief medical health officer Dr. Elizabeth Brodkin said schools are “relatively safe places in the scheme of things.”
“We have seen a very significant number of exposures in our schools, but only exposures and very few of them have gone on to result in transmission,” she said.
As for the timelines for notifying those who have been exposed, Brodkin said they can vary “significantly” depending on the case.
“From the time the case becomes symptomatic to the time the case goes and gets tested until the time that we actually receive the results is actually a number of days,” she said. “Then we need to interview the case and ensure that they’re doing what they need to do, and from there we go on to identify the contacts. So this process sometimes is very simple and happens very quickly but at other times can be quite difficult and complex perhaps because the telephone numbers that we have for the contacts are incorrect, perhaps because of language barriers or perhaps because of the stigma that’s associated with infection that means some people just don’t want to be found.”
Fraser Health CEO Dr. Victoria Lee said it’s important to remember people who contract COVID “aren’t immediately infectious.”
“It takes time for the virus to incubate, often five to nine days before a person becomes infectious,” she said.
- With files from Cornelia Naylor
