Ottawa Public Health’s latest real-world contact tracing example shows the widespread impacts of delaying COVID-19 testing and vaccination after a few seemingly innocuous gatherings.
The local public health unit, which in the past has released flowcharts to show how COVID-19 has spread through gatherings such as weddings, workplaces and outdoor barbecues, posted a new case study on Wednesday showing transmission tied to a sports game and a social event.
The end result of the two events was 26 people testing positive for COVID-19 and 247 high-risk contacts, affecting nearly a dozen Ottawa schools over 23 days in September.
All transmission related to sports games and schools in the diagram are related to youth over the age of 12, OPH said.
And even though every individual with a positive case was eligible for vaccination, each person who ultimately contracted the virus did not have a full course of vaccines, the health unit said.
The transmission started with one youth with COVID-19 who attended a sports game, which was held outdoors but included physical contact and no masking.
That initial person delayed testing and went to a social gathering and to school, affecting a total of four classroom cohorts and a handful of other homes and businesses.
A second person with COVID-19 then attended a social gathering with individuals from the initial sports game, with inconsistent masking and distancing despite two of the people there exhibiting symptoms.
A number of other schools, sports games and even a long-term care home were then at risk of outbreaks as a result of a visit from a person with COVID-19, OPH said, though no high-risk contacts were ultimately traced to the care facility.
In total, 13 cohorts were dismissed across two schools as a result of high-risk contacts tied to the sports game and subsequent social gathering.
Transmission continued past OPH’s diagram, the health unit added in its tweet, with an additional 11 people testing positive for the virus and 217 more high-risk contacts. An elementary school also had to close as a result of the spread.
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