Two Calgary schools and an unidentified daycare have now encountered the COVID-19 variant that experts believe spreads much easier than the original strain.
Dr. Deena Hinshaw said on Tuesday that 50 cases of the U.K. variant and seven cases of the South African variant have now been identified in the province.
All seven of the South African variant cases were identified in travellers while 36 of the U.K. variant cases were identified in returning travellers. Six more U.K. variant cases were in close contacts of returning travellers.
But eight cases spread across five families were not.
“Investigations are underway to determine the source of these cases,” Hinshaw said Tuesday. “But at the moment, what we have identified is a link between four of these cases to a daycare outbreak.”
The province’s top doctor said the link was identified Tuesday, and contact tracing was underway. Because families were still being notified, Hinshaw declined to identify which daycare the cases were connected to.
In a post on Facebook Tuesday, Minister of Children’s Services Rebecca Schultz said she sent an email to child care operators about the new variant.
She said the affected child care centre is working with AHS and Alberta Health to identify the source of the infection. If any changes are needed to the guidelines around child care centres, the minister said they will be made.
“There are many questions that we do not yet have the answers to. But I want you to know that we’re here to support you and that, unfortunately, this pandemic is not yet over, so we need to continue to be diligent and careful,” she wrote.
“I know this is news no one wants to hear. Daycares, out-of-school care, preschools and licensed family dayhomes across this province have been doing an exceptional job of keeping kids and families, not to mention your own staff, safe over the last 10 months.”
Three classes in Calgary schools previously ordered to quarantine are now connected to the U.K. variant.
“In two Calgary zone schools, this household spread has unfortunately led to children of returning travellers attending school while those students were determined to have been infectious,” Hinshaw said.
“The families involved in these situations did not intentionally break any rules and should not be blamed or shamed.”
Hinshaw said the contacts of the students are being contacted by health-care teams, with calls reinforcing the importance of strict quarantine protocols and asking that they get tested twice for COVID-19.
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“There is no evidence right now that there has been any spread of the variant at these schools,” Hinshaw reassured.
On Tuesday, 268 new COVID-19 cases were identified in Alberta from nearly 7,900 tests, resulting in a 3.5 per cent positivity rate. The number of hospitalizations remained at 556 people, but ICU cases went down to 97.
Minutes before Hinshaw’s Tuesday news conference, Premier Jason Kenney wrote a message on Twitter, saying Alberta had “run out of vaccines.”
However, a spokesperson for Health Minister Tyler Shandro explained that meant no first doses are being administered; only second doses, as previously announced.
“We planned around the need to do second doses within the original recommended time,” Steve Buick said. “Then, because of the supply cuts, we had to extend the time between doses. We believe we can still meet our commitments to second doses but we’re re-evaluating due to the latest cuts.”
Hinshaw reported that 17,000 Albertans have been fully immunized with two doses of the vaccine, and 107,400 doses have been administered.
Extended household quarantine for variants
The chief medical officer of health changed the quarantining rules for families or co-residents of people who test positive for the variants of the novel coronavirus.
Unless the quarantining person sits out their time in a different building, household contacts will now need to stay home for 14 days after the initial isolation period. That means a household quarantine period is now 24 days long.
“Given how easily this variant is spreading in homes, this enhancement is necessary to prevent spread in the community,” Hinshaw said.
The chief medical officer of health said contacts linked to variants of concern are being notified of hotel isolation options.
Alberta’s top doctor said all the tests from nearly 45,000 returning travellers who participated in the border testing pilot program are being tested for COVID-19 variants. To date, the pilot program has identified 28 variant cases.
Hinshaw reiterated the need to stop community spread through all of the existing public health guidance, saying the more virulent variants could cause a jump in cases, pausing reopening plans or increasing restrictions.
“The potential for rising cases, including the spread of variants, is one of the things we will be watching for in the days ahead,” she said.
Hinshaw said that community spread of the new variants could affect the staged targets for relaxed restrictions.
“If we continue to follow all public health protocols in every aspect of our daily lives then we can continue to keep our transmission low,” she said. “It really is up to those businesses that are looking to potentially open on the 8th (of February) — as long as we are able to maintain our trajectory to make sure that they are following all of the requirements and all of the protocols.
“We will continually assess the impacts.”
Hinshaw said the province has not seen a change in the downward trajectory of cases or hospitalizations since opening schools, personal services and allowing outdoor social gatherings.
New variants increasing the odds
Dr. Lynora Saxinger, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Alberta, says the outcome of a Calgary student attending school while sick with a COVID-19 variant is an “odds game of whether or not that exposure resulted in the outward spread.”
News that quarantines for staff and students went into effect is “encouraging,” Saxinger said.
“The counterpoint, of course, is these variants are more transmissible so there’s a higher likelihood than usual that there might have been some spread,” Saxinger told Global News.
“If you’re thinking about congregate settings, schools are probably less unsafe than all of the other congregate settings than we think of.”
Saxinger said news of a variant being found in a setting like a long-term care home or a meat-packing plant would be much more concerning to her.
“Things could change very quickly. If someone who is infectious gets into a setting with a bunch of other people, it could radically change the shape of this pandemic.”
A Calgary-based infectious disease physician said community spread of a coronavirus variant could cascade.
“This has the potential to create another wave, if we’re not careful,” Dr. Vanessa Meier-Stephenson said.
The message from the three doctors was consistent.
“We already know what we need to do to stop the spread,” Meier-Stephenson said. “The new variant doesn’t spread more effectively through the air and it doesn’t necessarily last longer on surfaces.
“The same things that are going to protect us from the original strains are going to protect us from these new variants.”
–with files from Lauren Pullen, Global News
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