It didn’t take long for the first case of COVID-19 to crop up in a local school.
John Howitt, director of Education for the Lambton-Kent District School Board says an unvaccinated student at John McGregor Secondary School tested positive on Wednesday.
“Public Health did access the database for those who are vaccinated and made decisions about dismissals based on that,” Howitt says. “We had approximately 25 students dismissed and no staff at this point that were deemed to be direct contacts of the student.”
The school remains open, and those students who have been set home have switched to remote learning for the time being.
Chatham-Kent’s medical officer, Dr. David Colby says the higher the vaccination rate amongst students and staff, the smoother the school year will go.
“The positive student was not vaccinated, and two cohorts and contacts from a bus have been isolated or self-monitoring depending on their vaccine status. I would emphasize stabilizing the school experience really depends on people getting vaccinated.”
As it stands, Chatham-Kent’s vaccination rate for youth aged 12-17 is 65% with one dose, and 51% fully vaccinated with both shots.
Families are reminded to complete the daily COVID screening assessment tool before sending kids to school.