Child who contracted COVID-19 variant attended Calgary school while infectious

CALGARY (660 NEWS) — A Calgary student who contracted a case of the COVID-19 variant from a person who returned from travelling attended class while infectious.

Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw made the announcement over Twitter Monday night saying there’s no evidence to suggest anyone else has been infected.

“The affected class and any staff at risk of being exposed were already being treated as COVID-19 close contacts and so were already in quarantine,” she said.

“Health care teams have contacted anyone who may have been potentially exposed and offered them the chance to get tested twice to reduce any potential for further onward transmission.”

Alberta currently has 51 cases of the U.K. and South Africa variants. Six of those are in three different unrelated households where there is no clear link to travel.

The increase was due to a batch of travel-related positive tests from over the past month that hadn’t been sequenced, Hinshaw explained during Monday’s COVID-19 update.

The provincial lab has reached its target to test 300 samples per day for the variants and reached its goal to conduct full genome testing on 400 samples per week.

 

 

I know that reports of new variant cases can create anxiety, so I want to let you know that health officials have learned that 1 child of a returning traveller attended a Calgary school while they were determined to have been infectious with a variant case. (1/3)

— Alberta Chief Medical Officer of Health (@CMOH_Alberta) February 2, 2021