[GTranslate]In schools, it is a Covid-19 alarm. After returning to the classrooms – albeit staggered – of all Ontario students, the curve of infections began to rise rapidly to reach 10,882.
There are currently 908 schools with active virus outbreaks, according to the provincial government’s website, while 38 schools have temporarily closed their doors. The last to transfer all children to distance learning are three elementary schools of the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board: San Lorenzo Ruiz, St. Cornelius and St. John the Baptist. This brings the number of schools in the Catholic department of Peel Region to ten, which at the moment have left students and teachers at home.
St. Sofia Byzantine School in Mississauga – where 10 students and five teachers are infected – is among the schools that have been closed for the most time. The condition of a staff member who is hospitalized due to complications caused by Covid is not known.
Spokesman Bruce Campbell says the council has been forced to close schools to in-person learning due to a lack of teachers in isolation. “There are not enough teachers as there are no substitutes to ensure safe supervision and to be able to guarantee lessons in presence,” he said.
The school, located in the Burnhamthorpe Road East and Dixie Road area, closed on 4 March and transferred students to the online study: a few days later, on 8 March, Peel Public Health declared the presence of an outbreak at the school as some of the infected “may have contracted the virus in the school”.
In a letter sent to parents on March 9, the public health unit says it believes the infections appear to be caused by a variant of the virus. Attendance at classes, which was due to resume this week, has been postponed until March 29.
In Brampton, the Peel District School Board and Peel Public Health decided to close Lorenville Public School “to protect staff and students from the spread of Covid-19.” Nine cases were confirmed at the school.
Students of the École Secondaire Catholique Sainte-Famille, which is located in Mississauga from today, will also follow the lessons only virtually “due to the operational challenges related to Covid-19”. “The decision was taken to safeguard the health and safety of all citizens by slowing down the Covid-19 pandemic and keeping under control the outbreak that broke out at school. The school administration is working closely with Peel Public Health and is calling for the full collaboration of parents and the school community to ensure a return to normality as soon as possible,” said Conseil Scolaire Catholique MonAvenir.
And after the ongoing outbreaks at the Student Residence of Severn Court (declared February 20) and at Champlain College in Trent (which began on March 4), Trent University’s Gzowski College is now the third residence where a virus outbreak has broken out. A Section 22 ordinance has been issued for the facility under which Gzowski College residents can leave their rooms only to pick up food exclusively from the Otonabee College.
