Potential COVID exposures close to 200 in B.C.; 68 in Interior Health

The tally of schools in the Interior Health region with potential COVID-19 exposures jumped to 68 today, Oct. 1, from 41 yesterday.

And that’s just the ones that have been reported on the Interior Health School Exposures web page.

One caller to iNFOnews.ca, who didn’t want to be identified, said that at least one classroom full of students in Columbia Elementary School in Penticton were told on Wednesday night to stay at home after two children tested positive for COVID the previous week.

There are no schools listed as having potential exposures in the entire Okanagan-Skaha school district where Columbia Elementary School is located.

By the end of today, there were 68 schools on the list in Interior Health with the Central Okanagan leading the way with 18, which includes 15 public schools, two independent schools and one francophone school.

There are nine schools listed in the Kamloops-Thompson public school district. There are also two independent schools in Kamloops, one of which is now partially closed.

READ MORE: COVID-19 exposures force partial closure of Kamloops school

There are seven schools on the list in the North Okanagan-Shuswap school district and three in the Vernon school district with one of those in Cherryville.

By comparison, there are only two schools in the Vancouver Coastal health region listed on the its website. There are also only two listed in the Northern Health region.

There are 92 schools with potential COVID exposures in the Fraser Health region.

READ MORE: All B.C. students will have to wear masks at school starting on Monday

See all the Interior Health region schools with possible COVID exposures here.


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Rob Munro

Rob Munro

Rob Munro has a long history in journalism after starting an underground newspaper in Whitehorse called the Yukon Howl in 1980. He spent five years at the 100 Mile Free Press, starting in the darkroom, moving on to sports and news reporting before becoming the advertising manager. He came to Kelowna in 1989 as a reporter for the Kelowna Daily Courier, and spent the 1990s mostly covering city hall. For most of the past 20 years he worked full time for the union representing newspaper workers throughout B.C. He’s returned to his true love of being a reporter with a special focus on civic politics