WINNIPEG -- A Winnipeg mom says her family is at home isolating after her 9-year-old son tested positive for COVID-19.
An outbreak has since been declared at the boy’s school and students have transitioned to remote learning.
“He’s bounced back pretty quick, so we’re really thankful for that,” said Sarah Carroll. “The scary part is kind of seeming to be over.”
As cases climb in schools, questions continue to surface about the safety of in-person classes.
Carroll’s son is a grade 3 student at École Marie-Anne-Gaboury. Last Wednesday he woke up with a fever and later tested positive for the disease.
Carroll said her family’s been diligently following public health measures and advice. She said contact tracers linked the case to her son’s school.
“There was such a large number of cases in his direct classroom and none of those children in his classroom that had tested positive were children that we associated with outside of school,” said Carroll.
Several other schools in the province hard hit by COVID-19 have moved to remote learning and many more schools are dealing with smaller numbers of cases.
In the two-week period prior to Apr. 26, there were 364 total cases including 287 among students and 77 among staff. A total of 151 schools across the province had one or more cases, and 147 of the total cases during that span have been identified as variants of concern.
“Obviously we’re mindful, we’re watching this,” said Cliff Cullen, Manitoba’s Education Minister. “We’re having daily conversations with public health.”
On Monday, Dr. Brent Roussin, Manitoba’s chief public health officer, said the majority of transmission is not occurring in schools. He said the virus is spreading in young people and children in situations where there is close prolonged indoor contact.
“House parties, sleepovers,” Roussin said. “So, we’re really stressing to parents that if we’re trying to keep these kids in school, we have to limit the amount of gathering they have outside of school.”
Dr. Jared Bullard, section head of pediatric infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital, said he understands parents’ concerns.
However, he said studies, including one of his own done prior to the emergence of variants of concern in the province, have shown children are less infectious than adults making activities like school safer, as long as measures are in place.
Bullard said families may be at higher risk of infection because children can’t yet be vaccinated and their parents might not be eligible for a shot.
“They’re out in the community still having to do their job, so as a result they’re more likely to get COVID,” said Bullard. “And if they bring COVID into the household, the parents and adults can certainly transmit it quite well to their children.”
Carroll said her family’s been isolating from each other at home as much as possible and so far, no one else has tested positive.
She wishes more of an acknowledgement would be made about transmission within schools.
“I once was very pro-schools opening and I still am,” she said. “However, at this time, I don’t feel that it’s safe. I feel like the tables have turned a little bit.”
In the case of her son, she feels the school did everything it could to reduce the risk.
