Eight Mission schools have had COVID-19 exposures where at least one student or staff has shown a positive test result since Sept. 7, according to Superintendent Angus Wilson.
The province has recently resumed posting “exposure events” for schools online, after public pressure to continue the practice.
That provincial announcement came after a COVID-19 update from provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix after parents had expressed concern.
Wilson said he feels the notifications are probably a good thing.
“I think that all the notifications and monitoring does have the effect to make people more worried than they ought to be, but if we don’t do it, people may speculate it’s a cover up,” Wilson said. “I think we are going to have more before we have less.”
He explained that last year, a general exposure letter was sent out to parents if any COVID event occurred in a school. An intermediate letter would be sent if a COVID case occurred in your child’s classroom, advising you to monitor for symptoms, and a third letter of self isolation would be issued if your child sat next to someone with COVID. That letter would ask parents to isolate their child for 10 days and encourage them to have the child tested.
At first, general notification letters were deemed unnecessary this school year. They will now continue, but not widely, as families needing to take additional measures will be contacted directly.
“Fraser Health will now be reporting it all on their website,” said Wilson, adding that will be better than learning about it through “Dr. Facebook.”
He said the first month of school has gone “OK” but they have had “more COVID situations” than expected, which he called an obvious area of concern.
With 17 public schools in Mission, just under half have had a COVID exposure.
Fraser Health’s website currently lists exposure events at four schools: Heritage Park Middle had an exposure on Sept. 20; Mission Senior Secondary had exposures on Sept. 15, 16, 17; Silverdale Elementary on Sept. 21, 22, 23, 28; and Windebank Elementary on Sept. 14, 15, 16, 20, 21, 22.
You can now find school exposures on Fraser Health's website. There's a drop down for Mission and other districts. School exposures - Fraser Health Authority https://t.co/qlnvV7P48T
— Angus Wilson (@AngusSD75) September 29, 2021
While the Vancouver School District recently decided to make masks mandatory for all students from Kindergarten to Grade 3, masks are only mandatory for students in Grade 4 and higher in Mission.
“Be clear, there is no new mandate. That decision was strictly for Vancouver,” said Wilson. “We’ve had no emails or communications from the Ministry of Education or Fraser Health on the mask issue at this point.”
There are, however, a number of rumours regarding the provincial response to pressure from unions and concerned parents advocating for a mask mandate along the lines of Vancouver’s, Wilson said.
Whether such a mandate would affect just the Eastern Fraser Valley or the entire Lower Mainland, he couldn’t say, adding board discussions on the topic have not yet taken place.
The decision by the province to resume posting COVID exposures at schools came as cases have risen sharply in school-aged children.
There were 658 new cases in children ages five to 11 last week – out of a total of 10,412 since the pandemic began – and 261 in teens ages 12 to 17 – out of a total of 11,056 since the pandemic started.
Henry said that while overall cases of children have gone up, test positivity rates have stayed the same in the 12 to 17 age group. However, test positivity continues to increase in children ages five to 11.
“Most of the children (ages five to 11) who are testing positive (in Fraser Health)… are in the Fraser East region and this is the area of Fraser Health where we have the lowest rates of immunization,” Henry said, adding that similar patterns are seen in parts of Interior Health with low vaccination rates as well.
– with files from Katya Slepian
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