Nine Delta schools are starting out the week on Fraser Health’s list of schools having COVID-19 exposures.
According the health region’s latest list published on its website Monday morning, North Delta Secondary had an exposure event Feb. 17, 18 and 19.
The other schools include Cliff Drive Elementary (Feb. 16), Cougar Canyon Elementary (Feb. 16, 17, 18, 19, 22), Hawthorne Elementary (Feb. 16), Hellings Elementary (Feb. 17, 18, 19), Sands Elementary (Feb. 18, 19), Seaquam Secondary (Feb. 15, 16, 17, 18, 22), Burnsview Secondary (Feb. 16, 17, 18) and Southpointe Academy (Feb. 16, 17).
No school is listed as having an outbreak or cluster of cases.
The B.C. Teachers’ Federation, in a Monday morning news release, said new WorkSafeBC data shows a 250-per-cent increase in occupational COVID-19 infection claims in the education services sector since early December.
B.C. teachers are at significantly greater risk of occupational COVID-19 infection compared with many other workers in the province, second only to the health care services sector in the total number of occupational COVID-19 infection claims, said BCTF president Teri Mooring.
“The Provincial Health Officer continues to tell us that rates of COVID-19 transmission in schools is low, but the data is telling a different story,” said Mooring. “Like other frontline workers, teachers are going above and beyond every single day. However, they don’t have the same protections as many other workers.”
The teachers’ union notes its WorkSafeBC Advocacy Office is advising all teachers working in a classroom environment where there is a significant risk of exposure to COVID-19 to work with their local union to file a claim with WorkSafeBC should they be diagnosed with the virus.
