COVID-19 continues to circulate in school systems across BC and health officials have announced that they will be providing a monthly report on how K-12 continues to be impacted by COVID-19.
The province has been working to create a more systematic approach from last year in collecting information regarding vaccinations, clusters and cases and data is being posted on the BC CDC website.
Diagnosed cases of COVID-19 increased among 5-11 year-olds in BC during the first two weeks of the school year, primarily in regions with lower community vaccine coverage.
“Northern Health continues to remain higher than other parts of the province, but we know that this is a reflection again of what we are seeing in communities across the North, and reasons why we brought in additional measures,” said Dr. Bonnie Henry.
Serious outcomes from COVID-19 infections continue to be rare among all school-age children in BC. Among the 12-17 year-olds who are eligible to be vaccinated, hospitalization is less common in youth who have at least one dose of vaccine compared to those who are unvaccinated.
While unvaccinated individuals in that age group are 24 times more likely to acquire COVID-19 when compared to their two-dose vaccinated counterparts.
Among 5-17 year-olds in BC, there have been 94 hospitalizations, 10 critical care admissions, and no deaths from January 2020 to Oct. 12, 2021.
There are over 500,000 children under 12 years-old in BC who are still ineligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine at this time, but that may be changing soon.
This month, Pfizer submitted initial trial data for the use of its COVID-19 vaccine in children aged 5-11 to Health Canada; and registration is currently open for parents to register children in that age group.
The report also highlighted Interior Health's COVID-19 cluster cases in schools, a cluster being determined by having at least two or more active COVID-19 cases in one area.
80 clusters were reported during the first five weeks of school this year in Interior Health, and 314 individual cases were linked to these clusters.
As for the rest of the province, only 1/3 of schools reported having a cluster of cases.
For more information on the data for K-12 schools on the BC CDC website.
