Canadian Press file photo

By Shaun Penner

COVID IN SCHOOLS

St. Catherine Catholic School placed under COVID-19 outbreak status

Feb 23, 2021 | 4:34 PM

St. Catherine School in Grande Prairie has been placed under a COVID-19 outbreak status by Alberta Health, meaning that between five and nine cases have been identified there.

There are now four schools in Grande Prairie under that same classification, including Ecole Montrose, Alexander Forbes and Charles Spencer High School.

Two other schools, École Nouvelle Frontière and Hillcrest Christian School, are also under an outbreak status, but have recorded 10 or more cases.

Though these schools are placed under such a designation, Deputy Superintendent of the Grande Prairie Public School Division James Robinson says for their division, not all cases in these schools have occurred within the school setting.

“What causes us to move to ‘Outbreak Status’ is members of the school community who have tested positive, but were not in attendance during their period of contagiousness. They do not impact the school community, but they do get counted as school cases,” said Robinson, in an email to EverythingGP.

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“Because of this, some of our schools were recently moved to ‘Outbreak Status’, though they have actually had less than 5 instances of individuals attending our schools while contagious in the last 28 days.”

Alerts, where there are between two and four cases recorded, are active at seven other Grande Prairie schools, including GP Comp, Riverstone, Parkside Montessori, St. Clement, Ecole St. Gerard, Isabel Campbell and Grande Prairie Christian School.

Alerts are also active at Whispering Ridge Community School in the County of Grande Prairie, and St. Stephens Catholic School in Valleyview.

Chief medical officer of health in Alberta, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, says there are at least active alerts at 231 schools in Alberta as of February 22, accounting for about 10 per cent of all schools in the province.

Schools have accounted for 846 cases across Alberta since Jan. 11, when students returned to in-person classes.