The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) has diagnosed two people at Central Collegiate, one person at Westmount School and one individual at Prince Arthur School with COVID-19.
The SHA announced on Nov. 6 that someone at Central had tested positive for the virus; on Nov. 7, another person at Central and one at Westmount had tested positive; and on Nov. 9, someone had tested positive at Prince Arthur. The authority informed the Prairie South School Division (PSSD) about these developments, which had the schools issue a letter to families informing them of these developments.
This is not the first time that Central and Prince Arthur have had positive COVID-19 results. An individual at Prince Arthur was diagnosed on Oct. 1, while someone at Central tested positive on Oct. 2.
The letters the schools sent out state that a case of COVID-19 has been diagnosed in a person at the school, that the school and school division are working closely with public health staff to ensure measures are in place to protect students, that public health will contact parents/guardians and staff/volunteers who may have had close contact with the individuals, and that everyone entering a school should monitor for signs of the coronavirus.
The letters remind parents and guardians to call the HealthLine at 811 if they suspect their child has symptoms and keep their child at home. Schools will provide additional information as it becomes available. More information can be found at www.saskatchewan.ca/covid19.
No additional cleaning is required at these schools, said PSSD education director Tony Baldwin. He pointed out that by the time people test positive, they’ve been waiting for several days at home for the results.
“All the cases that we’ve had in Prairie South are quite old — I don’t know if that’s the right turn of phrase — (but) they’re not immediate and the person wasn’t at school when they were sick immediately the day before,” he continued. “The cleaning that counts is the cleaning that happened a week-and-a-half ago when they were last in the building.”
Division administration is pleased with the processes it put in place to handle coronavirus cases if they arise, Baldwin remarked. There have been no cases in PSSD schools of transmission from one person to another, while there have been few cases around Saskatchewan where someone caught the virus at school.
“What that tells us is we’re doing the right work and that people are getting sick because they’re catching it somewhere but not at school,” he added, “so that’s a real good thing for us.”
