Winnipeg school moved to ‘orange’ level after six new COVID-19 cases

WINNIPEG – An elementary and middle school in Winnipeg has sent several of its students home after six more people tested positive for COVID-19.

John Pritchard School is reporting a total seven COVID-19 cases, including one identified on Sunday.

The school has been moved to the “orange” level on the province’s pandemic grading scale. That means community transmission has occurred at a rate that is still manageable by the health system.

“When we saw this number of cases, many of them within the same cohort (class) – we certainly don’t have the complete investigation right now – but we had to act as if there was transmission within that cohort,” Manitoba’s Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin.

“It’s through an abundance of caution that we expanded the cohorts that need to self-isolate.”

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Students in Grades 6, 7, and 8, as well as a split Grade 4 and 5 class, will move entirely to remote learning for an estimated two weeks. All other students are continuing with in-class learning.

Roussin would not reveal if the positive cases were students, staff, or both.

“We don’t want to specifically identify any of that,” he said at a press conference Wednesday.

The six new confirmed cases from John Pritchard were all asymptomatic while at school, and only got tested once they began to develop symptoms.

“Parents should be expressing to their children that they should be following the guidance that they are getting within the schools,” said Education Minister Kelvin Goertzen. “Those provisions, while they might not always make sense to a student from a medical perspective, they are there to protect them.”

A spokesperson for the River East Transcona school division says public health investigations are ongoing.

Manitoba students returned to class last week and schools were aiming to have full-time in-class learning for children up to Grade 8.

The province reported 17 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday, for a total active case count of 269.

“Teachers will be in contact with their students today to initiate remote learning materials and plans and will be in communication with those families throughout the day,” school division spokesperson Amanda Gaudes wrote in an email Wednesday.

“We understand public health investigations are continuing and we will continue to follow their lead and directives.”

–with files from The Canadian Press.