There are still no cases of COVID-19 on Vancouver Island as one private school has closed its doors over concerns about links to the virus.
Glenlyon Norfolk School in Victoria announced Tuesday the closure of both of its campuses.
“We have been advised that this does not appear to be a high-risk case based on the individual’s travel,” reads a letter sent by head of school Glenn Zederayko. The letter went on to say test results should be available by Friday at the latest.
“At this point, we are unable to ascertain when it will be safe to enter the school buildings and therefore will continue to restrict access to all buildings on both campuses. Therefore, the school remains closed.”
Zederayko sent an email to parents on Monday announcing the decision to close the school early for spring break was based on one member of the school who had recently travelled and spent time in class while ill.
The school is expected to reopen after a nearly three-week break.
“We will be deep cleaning both campuses over March break with an intensive treatment and plan to resume classes as scheduled following spring break on Tuesday, March 31,” the email reads.
Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says school closures are an option in the province’s “toolkit,” but there are concerns about children being able to continue with education and ensure they are not just meeting up in other settings.
Currently, health officials can better supervise the potential spread of the virus if students remain in a school setting.
“It’s hard to know how effective school closures are for this particular infection,” Dr. Henry said.
“I know many other places are doing that as a way to keep people away from each other in what we know are congregated settings. There are other things that we can do to make schools safer during this type of an outbreak, things like separating kids in the classes, the enhanced hand hygiene for children, and the enhanced cleaning.”
Most B.C. students start March break on Monday and will be out of classrooms for two weeks.
“I will say that the fact that we have a two-week March break coming up is a little bit of relief in that parents already have plans for what to do with the kids for that period of time, and then we’ll see. We’ll see where we are in the community cases that we have and see where we are globally with the outbreak as this evolves.”