WINNIPEG -- A school division in Winnipeg has created its own contact tracing system amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Pembina Trails School Division is using QR codes to keep track of students and compile spreadsheets of who has been where.

The division has put up these codes in common spaces, including libraries and cafeterias, and students have to scan their phones when entering these areas. If students don’t have a camera phone, then they have to fill out a physical form instead.

“So a student comes in with their phone, they open their QR reader, or if it’s an iPhone they open their camera, click, and that takes them to a form, they fill out who they are and now it goes to an Excel spreadsheet,” said Superintendent Ted Fransen. 

“And in the unlikely situation where there’s a positive case in that school, the principal has it like that.”

Fransen noted this contact tracing system has already been used at Oak Park High School after someone tested positive for the disease.