The Superintendent for School District 73 says if there a case of COVID-19 in a school, the school community will be notified, though no personal information will be made public.

Terry Sullivan says it will be up to Interior Health to contact the affected school as well as decide how to communicate that news to students, parents, and teachers.

“The communication plan will be directed of course, by the medical health officer from Interior Health. Interior Health will do the contact tracing and will contact anyone who they determine has been exposed to a confirmed case,” he said.

“Our role of course will be to provide whatever information Interior Health requires.”

While there has been a confirmed case of COVID-19 in a Merritt school community member, there has been no confirmed cases yet across SD73, since students returned to class on Sept. 10. Sullivan though says its likely only is a matter of time.

“I think what we have found from other provinces in Canada is that what is happening in school is proportional to what is happening in the community. So we must be mindful of that,” he said.

“We’re going to be in this for sometime and the probability quite frankly is going to increase that we are going to come across cases. So, we have to be prepared.”

The BC CDC says if a COVID-19 exposure at a school is confirmed, it will be listed on their website.

SD73 guidelines say a ‘school exposure notification’ does not mean that all students at the school were exposed to COVID-19. They say if that people were not contacted, their children should keep going to school.

Anyone who was told that they were exposed to COVID-19 though will have to isolate at home for 14 days from the date of their last exposure, and the school will support student learning during that period of self-isolation.