North Coast Review
[This story originally appeared on The North Coast Review, a blog based in Prince Rupert that contains “items of interest to those living on the North Coast of BC.”]
Looking to reduce some of the concerns of parents with the return to school, the province will soon be providing up-to-date COVID-related information about schools across British Columbia, the COVID check-up if you will, to be offered through the BC Centre for Disease Control.
The information sharing plans were outlined yesterday as part of the Wednesday COVID-19 briefing from Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix:
“Beginning today, the BCCDC website will also link to regional health authorities’ school notification pages, providing the date and type of notification (outbreak, cluster or exposure) for impacted schools. Fraser Health’s school notification page is available now and the other regional health authorities will have theirs ready soon.”
As noted by the public health officials, Fraser Health was the first to go on line with their information, with a listing of School Districts in that Health Authority now providing data each day.
The Northern Health page is available here, however no data is currently in place related to COVID notices from the schools across Northern BC.
In their introduction to how the program will work, Northern Health highlights the following:
“Northern Health updates this list with the notification information of possible exposures to COVID-19 within schools in the NH region. We are providing this information so school staff, students and parents can be assured that Public Health is following up in their community and exposure risks are being mitigated to the best of our ability.”
At the moment, the focus remains on information as to how the program will work, as well as what steps will follow should a local school come in contact with the virus.
Once they begin listing the instances of COVID-19 contact, the schools will be removed from the list approximately one month after the last exposure date.
