Ottawa Public Health says an elementary school in the local French Catholic board is facing a COVID-19 outbreak, the first school in the city to face an outbreak since kids returned to the classroom this year.
Two students have tested positive for the novel coronavirus at École élémentaire catholique de la Découverte in Orléans, according to OPH’s COVID-19 dashboard.
Outbreaks in schools are declared when two people have tested positive in the setting within a two-week timeframe, at least one of whom likely was exposed to the virus in the classroom.
All high-risk contacts in the class have been asked to self-isolate after the exposure, according to an OPH spokesperson, who told Global News on Monday that the school remains open despite the outbreak.
Ontario’s COVID-19 reporting system has not updated since July to reflect new cases in schools across the province.
There are currently six active outbreaks in other child-care settings such as camps and daycares across Ottawa, with two other outbreaks affecting a warehouse and a religious setting in the city.
OPH reported 52 new cases of COVID-19 locally on Monday, down from 61 cases on Sunday and 75 cases on Saturday.
There are currently 408 active cases of the virus in the city.
The coronavirus positivity rate in Ottawa stands at 3.6 per cent for the past week.
There have been no new deaths related to COVID-19 in the city since Friday, which marked the first local fatality in the pandemic in more than two months.
OPH’s dashboard shows there are currently seven people in hospital locally with COVID-19, one of whom is in the intensive care unit.
On the vaccination front, some 81 per cent of eligible Ottawa residents have now received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 87 per cent have gotten at least one shot.
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