Coronavirus: More confirmed cases announced at Central Okanagan schools

A fourth public school in Kelowna was announced this week as having a confirmed coronavirus case.

Central Okanagan Public Schools said a member of the KLO Middle School community has tested positive for COVID-19.

The school district made the announcement Thursday night, adding the member is self-isolating at home and has support from local public health teams.

Interior Health listed the exposure date as Oct. 30 and Nov. 2.

Also Thursday night, the school district reported a second confirmed case at Okanagan Mission Secondary (Nov. 2-3). That school member was said to be self-isolating at home.

That followed a school district release on Wednesday, Nov. 4, announcing that a member of the OKM school community had tested positive and was self-isolating. The exposure dates for that case were Oct. 28-30.

“Interior Health confirmed that there does not appear to be a relation between this case and the case announced Nov. 4,” said the school district.

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Also this week:

• A third case was announced Tuesday at Kelowna Secondary School (Oct. 28-30).
• A single case was announced Thursday at Springvalley Elementary School (exposure date: Oct. 30);
• Interior Health announced Thursday that the outbreak at École de L’Anse-au-sable (Oct. 13-16, 19-20) in Kelowna was over.

School district superintendent Kevin Kaardal said despite the growing list of exposures, schools are still very safe with stringent safety measures in place.

“We do know that we can limit whether or not there’s a chance of an outbreak and so so far we have been very effective and being able to do that,” Kaardal told Global News.

Kaardal urged all community members to do their part in helping keep school safe and outbreak free by following public health orders and guidelines.

“Let’s try and get our numbers down in the community and of course we will then see those exposures in schools drop too,” he said.

On Friday, Interior Health posted on its school exposure page a second single case at St. Joseph Elementary, a private school in Kelowna.

The exposure date was listed as Nov. 2. The school was also listed as having an exposure case Oct. 21-22.

Global News has contacted the Catholic Independent Schools of Nelson Diocese for more information regarding the St. Joseph Elementary cases.

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According to B.C. Centre of Disease Control data, of the 821 cases in Interior Health since the pandemic began, 38 cases involve children under the age of 10, while 56 cases are people between the ages 10 and 19.

The majority of the cases involve people in their 20s at 220.