A high school in Longueuil on Montreal’s south shore will be closed for two weeks due to more than 30 novel coronavirus cases.
Currently, 26 students and seven teachers at Gérard-Filion High School have tested positive for COVID-19.
The Centre de services scolaire Marie-Victorin (CSS-Marie-Victorin) announced the decision to close the establishment until Oct. 13.
“The department of public health believes that the temporary closure is the best way to stop the transmission in the school,” said Dr. Mathieu Lanthier-Veilleux, who works with Montérégie public health, in a statement on Sunday.
“A little over a week ago, students in Grade 7 and 8 and their teachers underwent a screening test which will be extended this week to other students in the school as well as to school staff, which have not yet been screened to give us a complete picture of the situation.”
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Gérard-Filion High School students and staff members are being asked to stay home for the next two weeks.
As a precaution, students are advised not to play sports or socialize outside of their homes in order to limit spreading COVID-19 — even if they have not tested positive for the virus.
CSS-Marie-Victorin says the cases at the school come amid a growing number of new infections in the Greater Montreal area.
The south shore of Montreal is currently in the orange zone of the government’s coronavirus alert level system, which calls for tighter controls and limits private social events to a maximum of six people.
The Quebec government has also asking citizens to limit their socializing as much as possible in the next month as cases, outbreaks and hospitalizations continue to rise.