North Vancouver, West Vancouver schools continue to report COVID cases

Lynnmour Elementary in North Vancouver, and three elementary schools in West Vancouver Gleneagles Elementary and Ecole Cedardale in West Vancouver are the latest schools on the North Shore to receive notices of COVID-19 exposures.

Gleneagles and Hollyburn parents received word Monday, Nov. 8, about COVID cases in their children's schools, although there was no information about which classes were impacted.

Parents of a Grade 1 class at Lynnmour also recently received notice of an exposure Oct. 20, 21 and 26.

That follows a notice of a COVID case in a Grade 3/4 class at Ecole Cedardale in West Vancouver, Oct. 26-28.

In the recent cases, Vancouver Coastal Health has advised parents in its notices there has been no evidence of transmission to other students.

But some parents say the lack of notifications and details from health authorities hasn’t made them confident all cases are being reported.

Carli Sussman is a parent of two children who attend Andre Piolat French school in North Vancouver, where a cluster of COVID-19 cases happened among students near the end of October.

Sussman said only one letter ever went out to parents of one class – well after parents had started notifying each other of possible cases.

In one instance, finding out about cases in the school prompted a parent whose child had mild symptoms to get tested, which came back positive, said Sussman.

Meanwhile, cases had spread to students in another grade and to at least four parents, said Sussman.

No notification went out to the whole school, she added.

“Some of these kids rode buses with kids from other classes and attended after-school programs,” she said.

“It does make you wonder how many kids are running around with very mild symptoms.”

Sussman said she can’t understand why “if there’s a case of lice in my child’s class we get notifications,” yet authorities are reluctant to issue notices of COVID-19 cases.

“They don’t know what family situation everybody has, who is being looked after by grandparents, which kids might have compromised health situations.”

Sussman said she thinks it’s unfair that parents have to manage the notifications themselves “when this is a public health function.”

Around the same time at the end of October, the District of West Vancouver also advised families whose children attended an intermediate “Ninja” martial arts class on Oct. 28 that one of the children in the class had tested positive for COVID. The child was not wearing a mask in the class, although many other children were, according to the district.

People participating in a physical activity or sport are not required to wear a mask while exercising.

Earlier this fall, two other North Vancouver schools – Capilano and Upper Lynn elementaries – were hit with clusters of COVID-19 cases among students.

West Vancouver has only reported one previous school exposure, at Ecole Pauline Johnson, in September.

Despite the recent notifications, there are so far still far fewer COVID cases being reported than last fall, when numerous exposures were regularly being reported in both elementary and secondary schools and two private sports clubs were forced to temporarily close over COVID-19 exposures.

This year, COVID vaccination rates are high among both adults and teens on the North Shore and the handful of clusters in local schools have all been in elementary schools.

Among 12- to 17-year-olds in North and West Vancouver, between 87 and 91 per cent are fully vaccinated. So far, there have not been any exposure notices issued for high schools on the North Shore.

Canada has still not yet approved vaccines for children under 12, although that is expected soon. There are about 500,000 children under 12 in the province.

In early October, Pfizer submitted initial trial data for the use of its COVID-19 vaccine in children aged five to 11 to Health Canada.

The U.S. approved the Pfizer vaccine for children last week.

According to B.C.’s Centre for Disease Control, COVID-19 case rates among children and teens peaked in the last week of September, and have fallen since then.