Alberta Health says 54 schools have COVID-19 outbreaks, hundreds more on alert

CALGARY – Parents, students, and teachers in Alberta are getting a better sense of how many COVID-19 cases are showing up in schools.

An Alberta Health outbreak list posted on Wednesday shows the pandemic’s impact on the province’s education system, with 54 schools classified with outbreak designations.

Meanwhile, there are 702 schools with an alert status.

An alert status is given when two or more cases are identified in a school within a two-week period. Outbreaks are when there are 10 or more cases.

Eleven schools with outbreak status are in the Calgary zone, while three are within city limits:

• Buffalo Rubbing Stone School (Calgary)
• Canyon Meadows School (Calgary)
• St. Hubert Elementary School (Calgary)
• Ecole Edwards Elementary School (Airdrie)
• Heloise Lorimer School (Airdrie)
• Northcott Prairie School (Airdrie)
• Elizabeth Barrett Elementary School (Cochrane)
• Fireside School (Cochrane)
• Langdon School (Langdon)
• Meadow Ridge School (Okotoks)
• Percy Pegler Elementary School (Okotoks)

In an exclusive interview with 660 NEWS on Wednesday, Education Minister Adriana LaGrange said despite reports of more COVID-19 cases being found in schools, they are still safe.

Nine of the province’s 2,415 schools have transitioned to online learning. LaGrange says they transitioned “for operational reasons.”

“At this point in time, we are not anticipating having to transition a larger number of schools to online learning,” she said.

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However, LaGrange says her office is in constant contact with Chief Medical Officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw’s office and will take her advice on whether a wider shift to online learning is needed.

“We follow the science. We follow the health recommendations that they put forward to us. If there is a need to go to something more broad across the province or across a particular region, we would absolutely do that. We’ve done it in the past and we’ll do it again.”

She’s urging all eligible people to get vaccinated if they can, adding that is the most important step to help keep kids safe.

Around 30 per cent of all active cases in Alberta are people under the age of 19.