Peninsula student COVID-positive but no school outbreak declared

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A student at Bruce Peninsula District School in Lion’s Head tested positive for COVID-19 but the region’s medical officer of health says no transmission in the school has been found and no outbreak has been declared there.

As Dr. Ian Arra spoke late Saturday afternoon, public health contact tracers were making their way through a list of potential school contacts, he said. He said it’s still possible a school outbreak could be called, depending on the results of the tracing.

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It’s not believed she caught the bug in the school, due to surveillance data collected by the school in days prior to the positive test result, Arra said.

Potential exposure in the school was limited to one class, Arra said. As a conservative precaution, students in that class will have to isolate, typically for 14 days. That’s not necessarily going to be required of the teachers or other school staff, depending on their risk assessment.

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No bus routes of any schools are involved with the case.

There are no outbreaks declared in any schools or childcare centres in Grey-Bruce.

A notice on Bruce Peninsula District School’s website Saturday acknowledged a case of COVID-19 “associated with a Bruce Peninsula elementary school student.” It said parents and school staff were notified and the school will remain open. It’s a junior kindergarden to Grade 12 school.

Contact tracing of community contacts was all but completed late Saturday afternoon. Arra said if public health staff haven’t contacted people by Sunday morning and told them to get tested, there’s no need to get tested.

“. . . (W)e never, never identify the individual. We say you have been exposed to a known COVID case. And we go through the risk assessment” to determine the nature and degree of involvement each contact has.

Depending on the assessment, each contact is advised what to do next, is given information and may be given dates when they can be tested for the virus. Some may have to self-isolate, or just self-monitor, depending on the degree of contact.

This is the third time there has been a case of COVID-19 associated with a school in Grey-Bruce, but none resulted in transmission within the school. There have been cases at schools in Hanover and a Grey Highlands.

Arra strove to limit sharing information about the girl who tested positive, saying she’s closer to 10 years old than 20.

It was not clear how she contracted the virus. There was no travel and no connection to previous cases, he said. She had symptoms, isolated and apparently recovered before getting tested, Arra said. The test result came back Saturday.

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This is the first recorded case of a COVID infection in Northern Bruce Peninsula, but Arra said there’s “no doubt” the pandemic virus has already been in the community.

There have been other cases there he knows of, including someone self-isolating at a cottage, and another involving a visitor to the area, both from outside this health unit’s jurisdiction.

“The fact that this is a first case in a resident in the peninsula does not really mean that there wasn’t transmission before. It’s just this is a first confirmed case reported.”

Saturday six new cases were added to the total, cumulative COVID count in Grey-Bruce, including the schoolgirl. The others were two in Kincardine, two in Grey Highlands and one in Arran-Elderslie, according the health unit’s daily report.

One preliminary positive from a few days earlier was confirmed positive and added to the totals.

Arra said with the increasing number of cases, it’s clear people are lowering their guard and so we must “double down on the three W’s: washing hands, watching distance and wearing masks correctly. It’s crucial in the coming few weeks and until we have the vaccine.”

But he also found something positive. The discovery of the schoolgirl’s case triggered the same swift execution of public health protocols as happened in the previous two school cases where there was no further virus transmission.

“Seeing it with the same seamless flow is reassuring.”